Abstract: This paper presents the Spitzer IRS (Infra Red Spectrograph) detection of mid-infrared polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission features and H2 associated with dense knots in the ring of the "oxygen-rich" (C/O~0.6-0.8) planetary nebula (PN) NGC6720 (Ring Nebula). We explored a further three oxygen-rich extended PNe with similar dataset available. These turned out to be non-detection of PAHs, although two of these do contain H2 emission knots. The presence of PAHs is discussed in the context of a bottom-up formation mechanism, in which fir...
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Topics: 
Astrophysics
Astrobiology