A Talk With Astrobiologist, Alejandra Traspas-Muina

What methodologies and technologies are you utilizing in your research to investigate how life came to Earth?

We currently work on three different state-of-the-art facilities in Europe: a synchrotron (ASTRID2) at the University of Aarhus, Denmark; a tandetron at the Institute of Nuclear Research (ATOMKI) in Debrecen, Hungary; and a Free Electron Laser facility (FELIX) at Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Inside these facilities, we use specific end stations — machines where we create space-like conditions, including a vacuum and very low temperatures. For these low temperatures in space, we use Kelvins instead of Celsius. 0 degrees Celsius is roughly 273 K, and our experiments usually run at 20 K!

We utilize the three particle accelerators mentioned above to produce lasers made of ions or electrons, depending on the regions of space we aim to simulate. Space is far from empty! There’s a lot happening. Sometimes, the ices I mentioned earlier get processed by various energy sources. We try to replicate these conditions in our labs. This processing allows us to induce chemistry in our ices, mimicking what would happen in space, and leads to the formation of new molecules. Identifying these molecules is essential, so we use different types of spectroscopy to “fingerprint” them. Astronomers can then recognize these patterns with their telescopes. For instance, we use the synchrotron at Aarhus University for vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy, studying the molecular fingerprints in a specific region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This allows us to categorize these molecules across various spectrum regions, much like taking different types of pictures.