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Theories on the origins of life propose that early cell membranes weresynthesized from amphiphilic molecules simpler than phospholipids such as fattyalcohols. The discovery in the interstellar medium (ISM) of ethanolamine, thesimplest phospholipid head group, raises the question whether simpleamphiphilic molecules are also synthesized in space. We investigate whetherprecursors of fatty alcohols are present in the ISM. For this, we have carriedout a spectral survey at 7, 3, 2 and 1 mm toward the Giant Molecular CloudG+0.693-0.027 located in the Galactic Center using the IRAM 30m and Yebes 40mtelescopes. Here, we report the detection in the ISM of the primary alcoholn-propanol (in both conformers Ga-n-C3H7OH and Aa-n-C3H7OH), a precursor offatty alcohols. The derived column densities of n-propanol are (5.5+-0.4)x10^13cm^-2 for the Ga conformer and (3.4+-0.3)x10^13 cm^-2 for the Aa conformer,which imply molecular abundances of (4.1+-0.3)x10^-10 for Ga-n-C3H7OH and of(2.5+-0.2)x10^-10 for Aa-n-C3H7OH. We also searched for the AGa conformer ofn-butanol (AGa-n-C4H9OH) without success yielding an upper limit to itsabundance of <4.1x10^-11. The inferred CH3OH:C2H5OH:C3H7OH:C4H9OH abundanceratios go as 1:0.04:0.006:<0.0004 toward G+0.693-0.027, i.e. they decreaseroughly by one order of magnitude for increasing complexity. We also report thedetection of both syn and anti conformers of vinyl alcohol, with columndensities of (1.11+-0.08)x10^14 cm^-2 and (1.3+-0.4)x10^13 cm^-2, andabundances of (8.2+-0.6)x10^-10 and (9.6+-3.0)x10^-11, respectively. Thedetection of n-propanol, together with the recent discovery of ethanolamine inthe ISM, opens the possibility that precursors of lipids according to theoriesof the origin of life, could have been brought to Earth from outer space.

Precursors of fatty alcohols in the ISM: Discovery of n-propanol