UrFU Scientists Report on Organic Molecules and Molecular Clouds

12:36, June 28, 2019

The laboratory of astrochemistry staff presented their research at the conference in Gothenburg

Anton Vasyunin and Anna Punanova, staff members of the Laboratory of Astrochemistry and Extraterrestrial Physics of the Academic Department of Astronomy, Geodesy, Ecology and Environmental Monitoring at the UrFU Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, talked about organic molecules and molecular clouds in the Universe at the international conference in Gothenburg.

Anton Vasyunin presented his study on the modeling of complex organic molecule formation in cold pre-stellar cores.

‘Complex organic molecules are the basis of prebiotic molecules, which are the building blocks for RNA and DNA. According to astronomical observations, complex organic molecules are present in the interstellar medium before the formation of stars and planets. The mechanisms of their formation in such conditions are currently under-researched,’ Anton Vasyunin says.

At the conference, he spoke about the results of numerical modeling of simple sugar (glycolaldehyde) and one of its precursors (formyl radical) formation in the protostar IRAS16293-2422.

‘The simulation allowed us to interpret the observations of these molecules on the ALMA radio interferometer in Chile performed by our colleagues from the Arcetri Observatory (Italy),’ the scientist explains.

Anna Punanova presented the observational test of the correlation between the concentration of methanol and visible light adsorption in cold molecular clouds.

‘Methanol is one of the key compounds for making molecular structure complex. It is also observed in cold pre-stellar cores and is widely used to validate the star-forming regions chemical models,’ Ms. Punanova explains. ‘Since methanol is formed on the surface of interstellar dust grains’ ice mantles and is destroyed by external ultraviolet, chemical models predict that the methanol content in the gas correlates with the degree of absorption of visible light on the line of sight.’

According to the observations of the spatial distribution of methanol lines emission and interstellar absorption of visible light in the direction of six pre-stellar cores in the star formation region of L1495 in Taurus, Anna Punanova checked to what extent the results of the chemical model correspond to the observations. Preliminary results show that the chemical model reproduces the observed trend well. Methanol observations were carried out in 2018–2019 using the IRAM 30m telescope (Spain), interstellar absorption data are based on the maps of continuous radiation of dust from the Herschel space telescope archive.

The UrFU scientists’ research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project #18-12-00351). They have conducted it together with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Germany), the Arcetri Observatory (Italy), the Cardiff University (England) and the University of Arizona (USA). The results will be published in international astronomical journals of the first quartile.

The international conference on star and planet formation “From Stars to Planets II” was held at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. More than 160 astronomers from Europe, Asia, Australia and both Americas involved in numerical modeling, observations and laboratory studies in the field of star formation took part in this conference.