Lecture | Harold Linnartz Astrochemistry Prize lecture
The Evolution of Aromatic Chemistry in Interstellar Space
- Date
- Thursday 4 June 2026
- Time
- Address
-
Gorlaeus Gebouw
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- CM 1.26
Everyone is welcome to attend. The lecture, aimed at a broad scientific audience, will be followed by a festive "borrel".
The Evolution of Aromatic Chemistry in Interstellar Space
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are thought to sequester a large fraction (10-25%) of all carbon in the Universe. While strong circumstantial evidence for their presence in space has existed since the 1980s, it is only in the last few years that the first individual PAH species have been definitively detected.
In this talk, McGuire will describe the synthetic and spectroscopic laboratory work, computational approaches, and observational efforts which have led to these discoveries, discuss his current understanding of the formation and molecular evolution of PAHs in space, and describe the growing body of evidence that these species, in no small part, influence the inventory of raw organic material delivered to early planets. He'll conclude by taking a critical look at open questions related to PAH chemistry in space and the prospects for the field going forward.
About the speaker
Brett McGuire is associate professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his PhD in 2015 from the California Institute of Technology and was a NRAO Jansky and NASA Hubble postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian until 2020. His group uses the tools of physical chemistry, molecular spectroscopy, and observational astrophysics to understand how the chemical ingredients for life evolve with and help shape the formation of stars and planets.