Paola Caselli: Chemistry from ISM to disks to pre-biology to planets

Director of the Center for Astrochemical Studies at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Munich, Germany, where laboratory astrochemistry, multi-wavelength observations, and theoretical models are carried out.

Paola Caselli

Her research stretches from the physical and chemical structure of the interstellar medium to star formation and protoplanetary disks. She uses molecules to understand how stars like our Sun and planets like our Earth form within molecular clouds in our Galaxy. The first steps toward the formation of pre-biotic species and molecules important to life as we know it are also part of her research.

Paola Caselli on Wikipedia

Short Abstract: All ingredients to make stars like our Sun and planets like our Earth are present in dense cold interstellar clouds. In these "stellar-system progenitors" active chemistry is already at work, as demonstrated by the presence of a rich variety of organic molecules (including precursors of pre-biotic molecules) in the gas phase and water-rich icy mantles surrounding the sub-micrometer dust grains, the building blocks of planets. Here, I’ll present a journey from the earliest phases of star formation to protoplanetary disks, with links to our Solar System, highlighting the crucial role of astrochemistry as a powerful diagnostic tool of the various steps, needed to unveil our astrochemical origins.