Ewine van Dishoeck on cosmic chemistry
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ewine van Dishoeck has spent her life studying the space between the stars. Not so long ago, interstellar space was thought to be an empty, sterile void. The idea that there would be organic molecules in interstellar clouds was absurd. Ewine, however, has revealed that there are some astonishingly sophisticated organic molecules in space. The molecules that are needed to form the building blocks of life were formed long before planets emerged from these swirling clouds of interstellar dust. Jim talks to Ewine, winner of the 2018 Kavli Prize for Astrophysics, about quantum chemistry, astronomy and why we need to keep building telescopes. Do Ewine’s discoveries make it more likely that we will find life elsewhere in the universe?
Producer: Anna Buckley
Main Image: Ewine van Dishoeck receiving the Kavli Prize in astrophysics, 4 September 2018 in Oslo. Credit: Berit Roald / NTB SCANPIX / AFP) / Norway
Transcript
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| 0:40.1 | The vast black emptiness of space in between the stars was for a long time assumed to be empty and sterile, a void, it's a vacuum after all, and the temperature is near absolute zero. |
| 0:52.0 | My guest today has shown categorically |
| 0:55.2 | that in fact this is not the case. Cosmic chemistry is alive and well and very different |
| 1:00.4 | from the chemistry we're familiar with here on Earth. |
| 1:03.0 | Ivina Van Desuk, professor of molecular astrophysics at Leiden University in the Netherlands, |
| 1:08.0 | has spent her career studying the vast swirling clouds of interstellar dust out of which solar systems emerge. |
| 1:16.0 | Combining theoretical chemistry with astronomy, she's found water in much greater quantities |
| 1:21.4 | than anyone had predicted and shown that complex organic molecules |
| 1:25.7 | exist in the cold dark space between the stars. |
| 1:30.1 | In 2018, Avina won the prestigious Cavalry Prize for Astrophysics. |
| 1:34.9 | Avina Van Deshoek, welcome to the Life Scientific, recorded on a rainy day here at the |
| 1:39.2 | Chartlem Science Festival. |
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