Interstellar formamide (NH2CHO), a key prebiotic precursor Ana López-Sepulcre,∗,y,z Nadia Balucani,{ Cecilia Ceccarelli,y Claudio Codella,x,y François Dulieu,k and Patrice Theulé? yUniv. Grenoble Alpes, IPAG, F-38000 Grenoble, France zInstitut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), 300 rue de la piscine, F-38406 Saint-Martin d’Hères, France {Dipartimento di Chimica, Biologia e Biotecnologie, Università degli Studi di Perugia, I-06123 Perugia, Italy xINAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125, Firenze, Italy kUniversité de Cergy-Pontoise, Observatoire de Paris, PSL University, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, LERMA, F-95000, Cergy-Pontoise, France ?Aix-Marseille Université, PIIM UMR-CNRS 7345, 13397 Marseille, France E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract Formamide (NH2CHO) has been identified as a potential precursor of a wide variety arXiv:1909.11770v1 [astro-ph.SR] 25 Sep 2019 of organic compounds essential to life, and many biochemical studies propose it likely played a crucial role in the context of the origin of life on our planet. The detection of formamide in comets, which are believed to have –at least partially– inherited their current chemical composition during the birth of the Solar System, raises the question whether a non-negligible amount of formamide may have been exogenously delivered onto a very young Earth about four billion years ago. A crucial part of the effort to 1 answer this question involves searching for formamide in regions where stars and planets are forming today in our Galaxy, as this can shed light on its formation, survival, and chemical re-processing along the different evolutionary phases leading to a star and planetary system like our own.