Astrochemistry’s New Golden Age: Finding New Molecules In Space With Ultrasensitive Molecular Line Surveys

What forms the interstellar and circumstellar clouds that helped make the stars and what can these molecules in space tell us about how our chemical universe evolves?

José Cernicharo (Institute of Fundamental Physics; Madrid, Spain) will share recent results obtained with the QUIJOTE line survey of the Taurus molecular cloud (TMC-1). New instrumentation and increased resolution have allowed for detection of many protonated species of abundant molecules, several sulfur-bearing species, cycles (benzyne, cyclopentadiene, indene), radicals, and long hydrocarbon chains. He will also present chemical models which were used to explain the chemistry of these species, and particularly the possible reactions leading to the formation of these cycles.