Sentences with word «astrochemist»
Methyl isocyanate has become a target for astrochemists ever since the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission detected the molecule on the comet 67P / Churyumov - Gerasimenko 2 years ago.
sciencemag.org
Helping to weave all those strands into a single, elegant narrative is an Emory University astrochemist with a providential name: Susanna Widicus Weaver.
At this point astrochemists are still testing the shallow waters in the great sea of molecules out there in space.
Meierhenrich found what he needed at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where astrochemists were making artificial cometary ice to test how these dirty snowballs form.
NASA astrochemist Stefanie Milam says the implications are «huge» for astrobiology because they suggest that at least some of the complex chemistry associated with life is present elsewhere in the universe.
«Everyone assumed space was too cold and too low - density to form molecules,» says National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) astrochemist Anthony Remijan, a leading expert in interstellar chemistry.
If they do, astrochemists in the lab could see what other complex combinations result from these radicals and then search for those molecules in space.
Radio astronomers have yet to identify anything as complex as an amino acid, so astrochemists do not know exactly how complex these gaseous molecules can get.
«It shows the level of complexity you can get to before planets form is pretty high,» says astrochemist Karin Öberg of the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the studies.
«Astrochemists reveal the magnetic secrets of methanol.»
This booklet provides information about a number of exciting space - related careers like astrochemist, project scientist, aerospace engineer, nutritionist, graphic designer, space lawyer, and of course astronaut!
Astrochemists suggest that the chemical mechanism responsible for the recombination of atomic H into molecular H2 is catalysed by carbon flakes in interstellar clouds.
The flood of data is providing a wealth of new spectral lines for astrochemists to mine.
In the process, astronomers, astrophysicists and astrochemists are gaining unprecedented insights into the age, origin and ultimate fate of the universe; into the life cycle of galaxies, stars and planetary systems; and even into the wellspring of life itself.
And finally, after decades of work developing theoretical models and computer simulation techniques, along with laboratory experiments to reproduce new molecules, astrochemists are putting names to many of those unidentified lines.
As in the case of C3H +, astrochemists might start with clues from the spectrum to guess what molecule might be behind it.
Astrochemists have already spotted signs of amino acids in space as well as sequences of molecules that might have given rise to them.
«We usually do chemistry based on the conditions we have on Earth,» says Ryan Fortenberry, an astrochemist at Georgia Southern University.
«The detection of these compounds in comets helps to expand our knowledge of... the potential ingredients for life that could have been delivered to the early Earth or other planetary surfaces by comets,» says Jamie Elsila, an astrochemist at NASA.
«We know that the solar system isn't unique in its number of planets or abundance of water,» says Karin Öberg, an astrochemist at the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
«It's pretty well established that once an excess [of one chirality] is present, life is going to go with it,» says Brett McGuire, an astrochemist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Va..
According to study author Serena Viti, an astrochemist at University College London, this is the first time that the molecule has been identified in a region of the galaxy that could be hospitable to life.
«This is an unexpected and potentially groundbreaking discovery,» said Martin Cordiner, an astrochemist working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the lead author of the study.
Astrochemists have known that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) make up an estimated 10 % of all interstellar carbon in the universe, but it has been challenging for them to distinguish one PAH from another.