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No evidence for interstellar proteins

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Abstract

The existence of a broad interstellar feature near 280 nm, previously announced in these Letters, is not contested. From astronomical and biochemical arguments it is shown that no quantitative measures of optical depth can be derived from the published data and that there is a great wealth of organic molecules which have absorptions at or near this wavelength interval. The amino acid tryptophan is one such molecule but the deduced spectrum does not satisfy two other properties of its spectrum.

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Koch, R.H., Davies, R.E. No evidence for interstellar proteins. Astrophys Space Sci 100, 425–426 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00651619

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00651619

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