Floris van der Tak
SRON / U Groningen (Netherlands)
The future of space-based astrochemistry
The study of chemical processes in space informs both astronomy and chemistry, and has strong connections to astrophysics, geochemistry, and astrobiology. Recent years have seen major progress in this field, particularly from ALMA and JWST, but also from other facilities such as SOFIA. For the interpretation of the observational data, laboratory experiments and computational efforts are essential, both to understand and to quantify basic physical and chemical processes. Current big questions in the field are the limits of molecular complexity in interstellar space, the degree of chemical inheritance during planet formation, and prebiotic chemistry in the atmospheres and on the surfaces of exoplanets. This talk outlines upcoming astrochemical opportunities from ground-based, airborne, suborbital, and space-based platforms. The focus is on far-infrared missions, but facilities operating in neighbouring wavelength ranges will also be reviewed.
