Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

The Invisible made Visible:<br/>Far-Infrared Spectroscopy in Support of Astrochemistry

Objective

The interstellar medium (ISM) is filled with highly diluted matter. Chemical processes in the ISM are largely obscured by interstellar dust, prohibiting a detailed view of the chemical evolution of star forming regions. Far-infrared (terahertz; THz) observations of interstellar gas, ice and dust have the potential to penetrate deeply into molecular clouds and reveal the full history of star and planet formation. Accordingly, Herschel Space Telescope, SOFIA and ALMA, present astronomical flagship facilities, promise to open a new era in the THz astronomy. To fully realize this promise it is essential to achieve quantitative experimental THz studies of interstellar dust, ice, and gas. The goal of the outgoing part of this project is to produce laboratory THz spectra of interstellar ice analogues in support of Herschel Space Telescope, SOFIA, ALMA and future facilities. This project will provide the scientific community with an extensive terahertz ice-database, which will allow quantitative studies of the ISM, the possible detection of pre-biotic species and will, therefore, guide future astronomical observations. This part of the project will be carried out within the laboratory group of Prof. Blake in Caltech. The return project will be performed at the FELIX facility (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) within Dr. Cuppen (Theoretical Chemistry) and Prof. van der Zande (Molecular and Biophysics) groups and aims at studying in laboratory the molecular mobility in icy layers at the level of individual particles to reveal further details of chemical processes in the solid state in the ISM. Results will be implemented in Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo models of Dr. Cuppen, who simulates ice evolution for astronomical relevant timescales, pushing experimental results beyond typical laboratory timescales. This project will contribute to tackle fundamental questions in astrochemistry, such as on the origin and fate of the molecular complexity in the Universe.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IOF - International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF)

Coordinator

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT
EU contribution
€ 263 660,70
Address
HOUTLAAN 4
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Netherlands

See on map

Region
Oost-Nederland Gelderland Arnhem/Nijmegen
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0