Join us for a night of astronomy with two fantastic talks from Ko-Ju Chuang and Monica (Ko-Yun) Huang who will tell us all about astrochemistry. As always, there will be fun games where you could win cool science prizes!

This event will take place on Monday 25 July at Grand Café de Burcht (Burgsteeg 14, 2312 JS Leiden) at 20:00 CEST! 

Register at https://aotleiden.eventbrite.nl/ (not required for entry but will help us gauge the number of people attending)

Ko-Ju Chuang: “Alcohol's origin in space”

Ko-Ju 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 upcoming 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) 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 various molecules to probe 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.

Join us for an evening of astronomy and fun games where you could win cool science prizes!

For more information check out http://astronomyontap.nl/