Smells Like Teen Spirit: Volatile Organic Compounds in Carbonaceous Chondrites

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are free organic molecules that may evaporate or sublimate at standard temperature and pressure. Formed through a series of chemical mechanisms involving processes such as ion/neutral surface-chemistry synthesis on pre-solar icy dust grains [1], VOCs have been trapped inside meteoritic matrixes and are part of the molecular inventory of our primitive solar system [2-4]. Like soluble and insoluble organic matter (SOM and IOM), VOCs have remained unaltered by biological and geological processes since their formation early in solar system. Evaluating their abundance and molecular distributions offers key insights into the chemistry and processes that occurred during the early stages of solar system formation and the effects of parent body processing.