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ABSTRACT

Green 1981

Green, S., 1981: Interstellar chemistry: Exotic molecules in space. Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem., 32, 103-138.

The field of interstellar chemistry had its beginnings in 1968 with the microwave detection of the first interstellar polyatomic molecule, ammonia. Since then over 50 species have been identified in space. Before this it had been thought that molecular processes (as opposed, for example, to atomic and nuclear processes) played little or no role in astrophysics. The wealth of molecular radioastronomical data that has accumulated in the last decade demonstrates quite forcefully that this is not true. Analysis of this data requires information about a number of molecular properties and porcesses which fall traditionally into the area of physical chemistry. However, because conditions in interstellar space are so different from those normally attained in the laboratory — essentially zero pressure and nearly zero temperature — attempts to understand interstellar chemistry have stretched the limits of current physical chemical knowledge. The flow of information between molecular radioastronomy and physical chemistry has therefore been reciprocal, and it is likely to remain this way for some time.

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