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Recent Progress in Laboratory Astrophysics Achieved with NASA Ames’ COSmIC Facility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2018
Abstract
We describe the characteristics and the capabilities of the laboratory facility, COSmIC, that was developed at NASA Ames to generate, process and analyze interstellar, circumstellar and planetary analogs in the laboratory. COSmIC stands for ’Cosmic Simulation Chamber’ and is dedicated to the study of neutral and ionized molecules and nanoparticles under the low temperature and high vacuum conditions that are required to simulate various space environments such as diffuse interstellar clouds, circumstellar outflows and planetary atmospheres. Recent results obtained using COSmIC will be highlighted. In particular, the progress that has been achieved in the domain of the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) and in monitoring, in the laboratory, the formation of circumstellar dust grains and planetary atmosphere aerosols from their gas-phase molecular precursors. Plans for future laboratory experiments on interstellar and planetary molecules and grains will also be addressed, as well as the implications of the studies underway for astronomical observations and past and future space mission data analysis.
- Type
- Contributed Papers
- Information
- Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 13 , Symposium S332: Astrochemistry VII: Through the Cosmos from Galaxies to Planets , March 2017 , pp. 364 - 369
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2018
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