EAI Seminars: Our Astrochemical Origins

Paola Caselli, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany
Tuesday 18 January 2022, 16:00 CET

All ingredients to make stars like our Sun and planets like our Earth are present in dense cold interstellar clouds. In these “stellar-system progenitors” an active chemistry is already at work, as demonstrated by the presence of a rich variety of organic molecules (including precursors of pre-biotic molecules) in the gas phase and water-rich icy mantles surrounding the sub-micrometer dust grains, the building blocks of planets. Here, I’ll present a journey from the earliest phases of star formation to protoplanetary disks, with links to our Solar System, highlighting the crucial role of astrochemistry as powerful diagnostic tool of the various steps, as well as to unveil our astrochemical origins.