Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechInnovative Experimentation TechniquesAlthough there has been research study into the structure of particular molecules in ice particles, Continettis team is the very first to determine what happens when a single ice grain effects a surface.To run the experiment, ice grains were produced utilizing electrospray ionization, where water is pushed through a needle held at a high voltage, causing a charge that breaks the water into significantly smaller beads. We are delighted by the prospect of following in the footsteps of Harold Urey and Stanley Miller, establishing professors at UC San Diego in looking at the formation of the structure blocks of life from chemical responses activated by ice grain impact.”Reference: “Detection of intact amino acids with a hypervelocity ice grain effect mass spectrometer” by Sally E. Burke, Zachary A. Auvil, Karl A. Hanold and Robert E. Continetti, 4 December 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2313447120 This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Science Research (MURI-22, grant FA9550-22-0199) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under an agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (grant 80NM0018D0004).
Not built particularly to study ice grain impacts, it turned out to be precisely the ideal device to do so. Ice grains impact the microchannel plate detector (far right) at hypervelocity speeds, which can then be identified in-situ. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechInnovative Experimentation TechniquesAlthough there has been research into the structure of certain particles in ice particles, Continettis team is the first to determine what occurs when a single ice grain effects a surface.To run the experiment, ice grains were created using electrospray ionization, where water is pressed through a needle held at a high voltage, causing a charge that breaks the water into increasingly smaller beads. We are delighted by the prospect of following in the steps of Harold Urey and Stanley Miller, founding faculty at UC San Diego in looking at the formation of the building blocks of life from chemical responses triggered by ice grain effect.”Reference: “Detection of undamaged amino acids with a hypervelocity ice grain impact mass spectrometer” by Sally E. Burke, Zachary A. Auvil, Karl A. Hanold and Robert E. Continetti, 4 December 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2313447120 This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Science Research (MURI-22, grant FA9550-22-0199) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under an agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (grant 80NM0018D0004).
