Astrochemistry's New Golden Age: Finding New Molecules In Space With Ultrasensitive Molecular Line Surveys

Carl Sagan once famously said that "We are all made of stardust" but what forms the interstellar and circumstellar clouds that helped make the stars? By understanding these clouds, we can learn more about molecular matter created in our galaxy and could help us learn more about how our chemical universe evolves.

Join us as José Cernicharo, from the Institute of Fundamental Physics (Madrid, Spain), shares recent results obtained with the QUIJOTE line survey of the cold dark core TMC-1. New instrumentation and increased resolution have allowed for detection of many protonated species of abundant molecules, several sulfur-bearing species, cycles (benzyne, cyclopentadiene, indene), radicals, and long hydrocarbon chains. He will also present the present chemical models which were used to explain the chemistry of these species, and particularly the possible reactions leading to the formation of these cycles.

This ACS Webinar is moderated by Anthony Remijan of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and is co-produced with the ACS PHYS Astrochemistry Subdivision.

What You Will Learn

• How diverse astrophysical environments are and what chemical processes permit the formation of complex molecules in space
• How new receivers have allowed the coverage of the whole 31-50 GHz band in dual polarization with a spectral resolution of 38.15 kHz
• How this unprecedented sensitivity allowed for the search for new molecules in a line by line (no stacking) detection procedure transforming an astronomical object in a spectroscopy laboratory

Meet the Experts

• José Cernicharo, Profesor de Investigación, Instituto de Física Fundamental (CSIC)
• Anthony Remijan, Assistant Director, Science Support and Research, National Radio Astronomy Observatory