Chemical Cosmology

This class is an introduction to the modern extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, i.e., the part of astrophysics that deals with the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole, and its major constituents: dark matter, dark energy, galaxies, quasars, large-scale structure, and intergalactic gas.

Just before the preliminary program of Orbis Scientiae 1998 went to press the news in physics was suddenly dominated by the discovery that neutrinos are, after all, massive particles. This was predicted by some physicists including Dr. Behram Kusunoglu, who had apaper published on this subject in 1976 in the Physical Review. Massive neutrinos do not necessarily simplify the physics of elementary particles but they do give elementary particle physics a new direction. If the dark matter content of the universe turns out to consist of neutrinos, the fact that they are massive should make an impact on cosmology.

This important book describes the basic principles of astrochemistry—an interdisciplinary field combining astronomy, physics, and chemistry—with particular emphasis on its physical and chemical background. Chemical processes in diffuse clouds, dense quiescent molecular clouds, star-forming regions, and protoplanetary disks are discussed.