Individual PAHs give us a way to follow a major reservoir of cosmic carbon molecule by molecule. We are testing how molecular size, ring arrangement, and environment affect their formation and survival, and what that means for the material available to new planetary systems. Explore aromatic chemistry.
A molecule needs an accurate laboratory spectrum before we can confidently recognize it in telescope data. Our microwave instruments measure those fingerprints and the small shifts caused by isotopic substitution, allowing us to study molecular structures and how chemical groups change the bonding within an aromatic ring. Explore the laboratory work.
Detecting a molecule tells us it is present; explaining its abundance requires a working chemical network. We study the reactions that build the first rings and larger PAHs, the movement of carbon between gas and ice, and the uncertainties that most strongly affect model predictions. Explore chemical modeling.
Laboratory and astronomical surveys contain more information than we can efficiently assign by hand. We use molecular representations, graph methods, and statistical analysis to identify mixture components and prioritize new targets. A useful prediction still has to survive a spectroscopic test. Explore the analysis tools.