Title: Finding “eggshells” in space: study of cometary cyclopropenylidene
Speaker: Yo-Ling Chuang
Date: October 21 at 14:30
Location: R124, Physics Building
Abstract:
One of the most compelling questions in science is also one of the simplest: why are we here? How did life form on earth? And how were humans born? Does life exist beyond Earth? The panspermia hypothesis gives the idea that the “seed of life” may be forming in the interstellar medium and exist throughout the universe, which is then distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, planetoids and comets. As comets are believed to consist of chemically unaltered compounds that remain since the early era of solar system formation, cometary study therefore could thread our way through the chemical and physical history of solar system evolution. In this talk, I will introduce the role of the simplest ring organic molecule, cyclopropenylidene, c-C3H2, in the big picture and present our research results of cometary c-C3H2.
