Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
May 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21641108c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #216, #411.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.821
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
The study of the formation and the destruction processes of cosmic dust are essential to understand and to quantify the budget of extraterrestrial organic molecules. PAHs are important chemical building blocks of interstellar (IS) dust. They are detected in Interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) and in meteoritic samples. Additionally, observational, laboratory, and theoretical studies have shown that PAHs, in their neutral and ionized forms, are an important, ubiquitous component of the interstellar medium. Carbonaceous materials extracts from mixtures of hydrocarbons (C2H2, C2H4, and benzene) contain a high variety of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). (From Jager et al. Carbon 45 (2007) 2981-2994).
Studies of large molecular and nano-sized interstellar dust analogs formed from PAH precursors have been performed in our laboratory under conditions that simulate interstellar and circumstellar environments. The species (molecules, molecular fragments, ions, nanoparticles, etc...) formed in the pulsed discharge nozzle (PDN) plasma source are detected and characterized with a high-sensitivity cavity ringdown spectrometer (CRDS) coupled to a Reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ReTOF-MS), thus providing both spectroscopic and ion mass information in-situ.
We will present new experimental results that indicate that nanoparticles are generated in the plasma. From these unique measurements, we derive information on the nature, the size and the structure of interstellar dust particles, the growth and the destruction processes of IS dust and the resulting budget of extraterrestrial organic molecules.
Acknowledgments: This research is supported by NASA APRA (Laboratory Astrophysics Program). C. S. C. & C. L. R. acknowledge the support of the NASA Postdoctoral Program.
Contreras Cesar
Ricketts Claire L.
Salama Farid
No associations
LandOfFree
Formation and Evolution of Interstellar Dust - Bridging Astronomy and Laboratory Astrophysics. does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Formation and Evolution of Interstellar Dust - Bridging Astronomy and Laboratory Astrophysics., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Formation and Evolution of Interstellar Dust - Bridging Astronomy and Laboratory Astrophysics. will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1891175