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Observations of comets and asteroids show that the Solar Nebula that spawnedour planetary system was rich in water and organic molecules. Bombardmentbrought these organics to the young Earth's surface, seeding its earlychemistry. Unlike asteroids, comets preserve a nearly pristine record of theSolar Nebula composition. The presence of cyanides in comets, including 0.01%of methyl cyanide (CH3CN) with respect to water, is of special interest becauseof the importance of C-N bonds for abiotic amino acid synthesis. Comet-likecompositions of simple and complex volatiles are found in protostars, and canbe readily explained by a combination of gas-phase chemistry to form e.g. HCNand an active ice-phase chemistry on grain surfaces that advancescomplexity[3]. Simple volatiles, including water and HCN, have been detectedpreviously in Solar Nebula analogues - protoplanetary disks around young stars- indicating that they survive disk formation or are reformed in situ. It hasbeen hitherto unclear whether the same holds for more complex organic moleculesoutside of the Solar Nebula, since recent observations show a dramatic changein the chemistry at the boundary between nascent envelopes and young disks dueto accretion shocks[8]. Here we report the detection of CH3CN (and HCN andHC3N) in the protoplanetary disk around the young star MWC 480. We findabundance ratios of these N-bearing organics in the gas-phase similar tocomets, which suggests an even higher relative abundance of complex cyanides inthe disk ice. This implies that complex organics accompany simpler volatiles inprotoplanetary disks, and that the rich organic chemistry of the Solar Nebulawas not unique.

The cometary composition of a protoplanetary disk as revealed by complex cyanides