Cyanamide (NH2CN) is a molecule of interstellar interest which can be implied in prebiotic chemistry. We showed, by FTIR spectroscopy, that cyanamide can be isomerized in carbodiimide (HNCNH), another interstellar relevant molecule, by a reaction involving the amorphous water-ice surface as catalyst. This isomerization occurs at low temperature (T < 100 K) which agrees quite well with that expe...

Methanediol, or methylene glycol, is a product of the liquid phase reaction of water and formaldehyde and is a predicted interstellar grain surface species. Detection of this molecule in a hot core environment would advance the understanding of complex organic chemistry in the interstellar medium, but its laboratory spectroscopic characterization is a prerequisite for such observational searche...

Protonated molecular hydrogen, H(3)(+), is the simplest polyatomic molecule. It is the most abundantly produced interstellar molecule, next only to H(2), although its steady state concentration is low because of its extremely high chemical reactivity. H(3)(+) is a strong acid (proton donor) and initiates chains of ion-molecule reactions in interstellar space thus leading to formation of complex...

The presence of H+3 in the interstellar medium was forecast almost four decades ago. Almost three decades ago it was asserted that its reactions with neutral molecular and atomic species directly lead to the production of many of the interstellar molecules that have been discovered by radio and infrared astronomers. With the recent detection of H+3 in interstellar space, astronomers finally hav...