Interstellar and interplanetary solids in Lab

Séminaire IPAG de Emmanuel Dartois (IAP), jeudi 30 mai 2013 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

The interstellar medium is a physico-chemical laboratory where extremes conditions are encountered, and whose environmental parameters (e.g. density, reactant nature, radiations, temperature, time scales) define the composition of matter. Whereas cosmochemists can spectroscopically examine collected extraterrestrial material in the laboratory [e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,6], astrochemists must rely on remote observations to monitor and analyze the physico-chemical composition of interstellar solids [e.g. 7,8,9,10,11]. The observations give essentially access to the molecular functionality of these solids, rarely elemental composition constraints and isotopic fractionation only in the gas phase. Astrochemists bring additional information from the study of analogs produced in the laboratory, placed in simulated space environments. In this presentation I will briefly touch some observations of the diffuse interstellar medium (DISM) and molecular clouds (MC), setting constraints on the composition of organic solids and large molecules in the cycling of matter in the Galaxy and try to draw some commonalities and differences between materials found in the Solar System and Interstellar dust.