Astrochemistry

Since the first edition in 2006 of Astrochemistry, the Mars rovers have driven 31.18 miles, there has been fly-by of Pluto changing it from a 4-pixel world on the Hubble Space Telescope into a mysterious non-planet. There have been visits to asteroids, revisiting Mercury, discovery of the Higgs Boson, discovery of over 2000 extrasolar planets and landing on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko by Rosetta mission – hence the timely publication of this new edition.

This core textbook now includes more detailed information on the kinetic modelling of chemistry in the interstellar medium, extending the same principles of physical chemistry to meteor ablation and finally atmospheres and oceans. The increase in density from near-emptiness to 1.35 × 1021 L of water in the world’s oceans is used to take single collision kinetics into ensemble thermodynamics. A new introduction of thermodynamic using meteor ablation replaces traditional bomb calorimetry and per-biotic chemistry leads to spontaneous reactions.