Molecular astrophysics astronomy

W.C. Martin, Sources of Atomic Spectroscopy Data for Astrophysics , in PL. Smith and W. L. Wiese (eds.), Atomic and Molecular Data for Space Astronomy Needs, Analysis and Availability, Springer, Berlin, 1992. 

Lada, C. J. and Lada, E. A. (2003) Embedded clusters in molecular clouds. Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 41, 57—115. 

Over the past thirty years tremendous strides have been made in our understanding of the complex chemistry in dense, dark, interstellar molecular clouds. This has come about because of fundamental advances in observational infrared astronomy and laboratory astrophysics. Thirty years ago the composition of interstellar dust was largely guessed at the concept of ices in... 

In many ways, the present situation resembles the situation of optical astronomy in the beginning of the last century Back then, the available observational data mainly consisted in images, starcounts, variability s, and colors. Astrophysics was born in 1859 when G. Kirchhof and R. Bunsen developed the spectral analysis and explained the Frauenhofer-lines in the spectrum of the sun. The exploration of atomic and molecular lines has since turned out to be the most powerful tool for the study of the physical conditions in celestial sources. 

Henkel, C. et al.. The kinetic temperature of a molecular cloud at redshift 0.7 ammonia in the gravitational lens B0218+357, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 440, 893, 2005. 

Figure 12 Line profile for the 16 613 A DIB at a resolution of about 100 000 revealing a three-peaked structure characteristic for rotational contours of electronic transitions in molecular species. Reproduced with permission from Ehrenfreund P and Foing B (1996) Astronomy and Astrophysics 307 L25...

Includes the following subjects general physics (U.S. Office of Education specialty code 1902) molecular physics (1903) nuclear physics (1904) astronomy (1911) and astrophysics (1912). 

The Submillimetre Wave Astronomy Satellite, SWAS, was launched on December 5 1998 and is operated by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as one of NASA s Small Explorer Projects (SMEX). It was designed to study the composition of the interstellar gas, mainly water, molecular oxygen and carbon molecules. 

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