Interstellar Detection of the Highly Polar Five-Membered Ring Cyanocyclopentadiene

Much like six-membered rings, five-membered rings are ubiquitous in organic chemistry, frequently serving as the building blocks for larger molecules, including many of biochemical importance. From a combination of laboratory rotational spectroscopy and a sensitive spectral line survey in the radio band toward the starless cloud core TMC-1, we report the astronomical detection of 1-cyano-1,3-cyclopentadiene, $c$-C$_5$H$_5$CN}, a highly polar, cyano derivative of cyclopentadiene, $c$-C$_5$H$_6$. The derived abundance of $c$-C$_5$H$_5$CN} is far greater than predicted from astrochemical models which well reproduce the abundance of many carbon chains. This finding implies either an important production mechanism or a large reservoir of aromatic material may need to be considered. The apparent absence of its closely-related isomer, 2-cyano-1,3-cyclopentadiene, may arise from its lower stability or be indicative of a more selective pathway for formation of the 1-cyano isomer, perhaps one starting from acyclic precursors. The absence of N-heterocycles such as pyrrole and pyridine is discussed in light of the astronomical finding.