Category: Spectroscopy

Elegant and fast: the GACELA is running

/ Marcelo Castellanos
The Gas Cell chamber

On June 7, 2019, a first paper on the GACELA (GAs CEll for Laboratory Astrophysics) experimental set-up is out at the “Astronomy & Astrophysics” journal (A&A, volume 626, A34, 2019).

More than 3 years have elapsed since the first designs were envisaged for this set-up. Finally, at the end of 2017, the chamber (see figure above) was delivered and successfully tested against leaks. On the other hand, the GACELA broad-band radio receivers (Q and W bands, 31.5–50 and 72–116.5 GHz, respectively) were successfully commissioned in the second semester of 2017 and interfaced with the GACELA set-up in February 2018. Several experimental runs were performed, showing high quality signal-to-noise ratio spectra of molecular species (CH3CN, CH3OH, CH4/N2, CH4/N2/CH3CN, etc).

As stated by the authors, GACELA has achieved an important milestone. It is the first time that we can observe the thermal emission of molecules with an instantaneous band width of 20 GHz in Q band and 3 × 20 GHz in W band for Laboratory Astrophysics. These rotational spectroscopy measurements are complemented by mass spectrometry and optical spectroscopy.

In summary, NANOCOSMOS has developed an elegant and fast-responding set-up, the GACELA, to provide high-resolution and high-sensitivity spectra of molecular species produced in cold plasmas or UV experiments.

More information:

This research was presented in the paper “Broad-band high-resolution rotational spectroscopy for laboratory astrophysics“, published in Astronomy and Astrophysics 626, A34 (29pp), 2019 June 7. The authors are: José Cernicharo (Instituto de Física Fundamental, IFF-CSIC), Juan D. Gallego (Centro de Desarrollos Tecnológicos, Observatorio de Yebes, IGN), José A. López-Pérez (CDT, OY, IGN), Félix Tercero (CDT, OY, IGN), Isabel Tanarro (Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, IEM-CSIC), Francisco Beltrán (CDT, OY, IGN), Pablo de Vicente (CDT, OY, IGN), Koen Lauwaet (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, ICMM-CSIC & IMDEA Nanociencia), Belén Alemán (ICMM-CSIC & IMDEA Materiales), Elena Moreno (IFF-CSIC), Víctor J. Herrero (IEM-CSIC), José L. Doménech (IEM-CSIC), Sandra I. Ramírez (Centro de Investigaciones Químicas, UAEM, Mexico), Celina Bermúdez (IFF-CSIC), Ramón J. Peláez (IEM-CSIC), María Patino-Esteban (CDT, OY, IGN), Isaac López-Fernández (CDT, OY, IGN), Sonia García-Álvaro (CDT, OY, IGN), Pablo García-Carreño (CDT, OY, IGN), Carlos Cabezas (IFF-CSIC), Inmaculada Malo (CDT, OY, IGN), Ricardo Amils (CDT, OY, IGN), Jesús Sobrado (Centro de Astrobiología, INTA-CSIC), Carmen Díez-González (CDT, OY, IGN), José M. Hernández (IFF-CSIC/CDT, OY, IGN), Belén Tercero (CDT, OY, IGN), Gonzalo Santoro (ICMM-CSIC), Lidia Martínez (ICMM-CSIC), Marcelo Castellanos (IFF-CSIC), Beatriz Vaquero-Jiménez (CDT, OY, IGN), Juan R. Pardo (IFF-CSIC), Laura Barbas (CDT, OY, IGN), José A. López-Fernández (CDT, OY, IGN), Beatriz Aja (Universidad de Cantabria), Arnulf Leuther (Fraunhofer Institut fur Angewandte Festkorperphysik, Germany), José A. Martín-Gago (ICMM-CSIC).

The GACELA experimental set-up is located at the Centro de Desarrollos Tecnológicos, Observatorio de Yebes, thanks to a bilateral agreement between CSIC and IGN for the development of the NANOCOSMOS project.

Astrochemistry Insights in Science Magazine, by Christine Joblin and José Cernicharo

/ Natalia Ruiz

Cone Nebula (NGC 2264) Credits: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA.

“Detecting the building blocks of aromatics” is the title of this “Insight” written by Christine Joblin and José Cernicharo (both NANOCOSMOS PIs together with J.A. Martín Gago) and talking about the history and importance of the work published by Brett A. McGuire et al. (“Detection of the aromatic molecule benzonitrile (c-C6H5CN) in the interstellar medium“) in the “Science Magazine” (12/01/2018).

This is the summary of the article from C. Joblin and J. Cernicharo:

“Interstellar clouds are sites of active organic chemistry. Many small, gasphase molecules are found in the dark parts of the clouds that are protected from ultraviolet (UV) photons, but these molecules photodissociate in the external layers of the cloud that are exposed to stellar radiation (see the photo). These irradiated regions are populated by large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with characteristic infrared (IR) emission features. These large aromatics are expected to form from benzene (C6H6), which is, however, difficult to detect because it does not have a permanent dipole moment and can only be detected via its IR absorption transitions against a strong background source (2). On page 202 of this issue, McGuire et al. (3) report the detection of benzonitrile (c-C6H5CN) with radio telescopes. Benzonitrile likely forms in the reaction of CN with benzene; from its observation, it is therefore possible to estimate the abundance of benzene itself”.

 

NANOCOSMOS at the Guillermo Haro School on Molecular Astrophysics (Puebla, Mexico)

/ Marcelo Castellanos

Prof. José Cernicharo has been awarded with the Guillermo Haro Visiting Professorship 2016 at the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE, posterGH16Puebla, Mexico). Following this award, INAOE has organized the Guillermo Haro School on Molecular Astrophysics (October 11 – 21, 2016). Several NANOCOSMOS scientists (Asunción Fuente from CNIG-IGN, Nuria Marcelino, José Pablo Fonfría and Luis Velilla from ICMM-CSIC) will give lectures on the following topics:

  • Molecular Astrophysics, Spectroscopy, Chemistry in the ISM (José Cernicharo)
  • Physical and chemical processes in the ISM, Protoplanetary disks (Asunción Fuente)
  • Observational methods and interpretation (Nuria Marcelino)
  • Molecular excitation and radiative transfer, Circumstellar medium (José Pablo Fonfría)
  • Chemistry in the circumstellar medium, atmospheric  effects and calibration (Luis Velilla)

José Cernicharo will give a public talk in Puebla downtown on Thursday 13: “Moléculas en el espacio: Astroquímica”.

NANOCOSMOS on top: Press releases from Nature´s “Compression and ablation of the photo-irradiated molecular cloud the Orion Bar”

/ Marcelo Castellanos

The paper “Compression and ablation of the photo-irradiated molecular cloud the Orion Bar” (Goicoechea et al. 2016) recently published in Nature, has put Astrochemistry and NANOCOSMOS in the leading edge forefront of many research institutIons, newspapers and mass media. A few examples can be found below:

ESO Picture of the week

CSIC

L´Observatoire de Paris

Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM)

Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP)

ALMA news

El Mundo newspaper

ABC newspaper

La Vanguardia newspaper

El diario newspaper

 

ECLA 2016 – webpage open

/ Marcelo Castellanos

Ecla2016-1125x510

The second announcement of the European Conference on Laboratory Astrophysics – “Gas on the Rocks” – ECLA 2016 has been issued today.  This conference will be held at the CSIC headquarters (Madrid, Spain) in November 21 – 25, 2016. The webpage is open with all the relevant information.

www.ecla2016.com

More than 30 invited researchers will address new insights on the following science topics:

  • Comets, asteroids, meteorites and the primitive Solar System nebula: formation and evolution
  • Protoplanetary disks and planet formation
  • Planet, Moon, and exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres
  • The signatures of the evolving interstellar medium
  • Dense Clouds: the gas-ice interface and molecular complexity
  • Chemical fingerprints of star formation
  • The late stages of star evolution: dust formation
  • Supernovae and shocks: high-energy processing of matter