Volume 245, 2023

Spiers Memorial Lecture: Astrochemistry at high resolution

Abstract

Astrochemistry is the science that studies the chemistry in the Universe, namely the combination of two fields: astronomy and chemistry. It started about fifty years ago and it has progressed in leaps and bounds, often triggered by the advent of new telescopes. From the collection of new interstellar molecule detections, astrochemistry has evolved more and more in the quest to understand how they are formed and thrive in the harsh conditions of the interstellar medium. Collaboration between astronomers and chemists has never been more necessary than today, when new powerful astronomical facilities provide us with ever sharper images of the regions where interstellar molecules are present. This review focuses on the special case of interstellar complex organic molecules (iCOMs), one the most debated astrochemical fields and where the astronomers–chemists collaboration and synergy is indispensable. The review will go through the various phases of the formation of planetary system similar to the solar system, providing the most recent observational picture at each step. The current scenarios of the iCOMs formation will be laid down and the critical chemical processes and quantities involved in each of them will be discussed. The major goal of this review is not only to present the progress but, more importantly, to highlight the many areas of uncertainty. A few specific cases will be discussed to give practical examples of why the huge challenge that represents the formation of iCOMs can only be won if chemists and astronomers work together.

Graphical abstract: Spiers Memorial Lecture: Astrochemistry at high resolution

Associated articles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 5 2023
Accepted
25 5 2023
First published
01 6 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Faraday Discuss., 2023,245, 11-51

Spiers Memorial Lecture: Astrochemistry at high resolution

C. Ceccarelli, Faraday Discuss., 2023, 245, 11 DOI: 10.1039/D3FD00106G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements