Between February 20th and 23rd, the Astrochemistry Group attended the first joint scientific meeting of COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) action CA21126 – Carbon nanostructures in Space (NanoSpace), hosted right here at the University of Edinburgh’s Kings Building Campus. The aim of this project is to probe the astrochemical role of carbonaceous nanoparticles in space and to investigate their abundance and formation mechanisms. The meeting was an opportunity to bring together great minds in theoretical, experimental and observational astrochemistry to provide a collective showcase of various groups’ work and to share ideas on developments moving forwards.

Prof. Martin McCoustra of the Heriot-Watt Astrochemistry group was there to provide a look ahead, to share our goals and to lay the foundation of catalysis of carbon species formation in space. It was also a great opportunity to showcase some experimental results from inside the group and to highlight the work of our fantastic computational collaborators at Universitat Autònoma De Barcelona.

In addition to the fascinating work shared by our chemistry colleagues from across Europe, we were also fortunate to have talks from Dr Alistair Glasse and Prof. Beth Biller from the Centre for Exoplanet Science at the University of Edinburgh, to share some of the ground-breaking developments and engineering insights of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Dr Glasse shared instrument design insights into the Mid-Infrared Intrument (MIRI) aboard the telescope, whilst Prof. Biller delved deep into exoplanet discovery and how JWST was shaping the way forward for exploring the chemistry of these distant worlds.

it’s easy to say the week was a great success and we want to thank the organisers of the event and chairs of the COST Action for the opportunity to share our groups goals, as well as all the attendees for their valuable insights, contributions and ideas.

You can find out more about COST action and Nanospace at https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21126/

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