Professor Veronica Bierbaum
104th Distinguished Research Lecture 2012
"Astrochemistry: From the Laboratory to the Stars"
of the 2012 Distinguished Research Lecture
CU-Boulder Campus, Chemistry Building 140Ìý
Boulder, Colorado
5:30 p.m. Thursday, August 30, 2012Ìý
How do scientists understand the composition of the cosmos, especially in regions distant from earth?Ìý This lecture will discuss how spectroscopy and kinetics, two fundamental branches of chemistry, allow scientists to probe the identities of molecules throughout space and understand their mechanisms of formation and destruction.Ìý Demonstrations will be shown to illustrate basic concepts of the absorption and emission of light (spectroscopy) and of the principles of chemical reactivity (kinetics).Ìý The development of powerful and versatile laboratory instrumentation will be described, which enables unique experiments to explore the chemistry of novel interstellar species.