AoT Leiden: The chemistry of the Universe! (Leiden, in English)

This month's Astronomy on Tap Leiden brings a night of astronomy with two fantastic talks from Ko-Ju Chuang and Monica (Ko-Yun) Huang. They will tell us all about astrochemistry. As always, there will be fun games where you could win cool science prizes! The event will take place on Monday 25 July at Grand Café de Burcht (Burgsteeg 14, 2312 JS Leiden) at 20:00 CEST.

Ko-Ju Chuang: Alcohol's origin in space
Ko-Ju Chuang studies laboratory astronomy and is an assistant professor at Leiden Observatory. He uses physical and chemical methods to address astrochemical questions; how do organic molecules form in space, what mechanisms trigger them, and where do they happen in the Universe? The ultimate goal is to better understand the extraterrestrial origin of the building blocks of life. In the talk, Ko-Ju will present experimental findings showing how different alcohols (drinkable or undrinkable) are synthesized before a star is formed.

Monica (Ko-Yun) Huang: The ALCHEMIstS: no magic, but astrochemistry!
Monica (Ko-Yun) Huang is a postdoctoral research associate at Leiden Observatory, originally from Taiwan but has been to many countries as well. Her work focuses on the investigation of the chemical & physical properties of nearby galaxies using one of the world’s largest telescopes (ALMA) along with modeling analyses. In particular, she is interested in using molecules arise from different chemistries as probes to some extreme environments, such as astrophysical shocks. In this talk she will describe how the astrochemists use observations of molecular emissions to reconstruct shock structures in the interstellar space.

Logistical information
We start at 20:00 sharp, so please arrive earlier to enter the bar, save a seat, and grab a drink. We are not planning to stream the event live, but will be uploading a recording of the talks on our YouTube channel after the event. Register at https://aotleiden.eventbrite.nl/. For more information check out http://astronomyontap.nl/