Brainstorming session on "Origin of molecular life in space: new frontiers"

The brainstorming session on “Origin of molecular life in space: new frontiers" is a very preliminary and first step towards bringing the Indian Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMP) community and the Space Science community together. This is done in order to take up a very challenging and rewarding problem related to organic molecules in space. The reasons for choosing this particular domain are many. Firstly a large fraction of the Indian academic , AMP community has already oriented its research activity towards laboratory studies on organics in space. Secondly, our AMP community has very comprehensive experience in mass spectrometric instrumentation as well as other molecular spectroscopic research. And finally, ISRO is now expanding out beyond earth's atmosphere and is in search of possible challenges beyond earth. The recent phenomenal success of Hayabusa-2, OSIRIS Rex, etc. mission has shown that there is a lot to learn about the organic evolution of our solar system.

Hence the way we plan this activity is as follows. So far we have invited well over 30 national and international experts from different relevant domains to join the panel of experts for this session. We have received confirmation from about 23 and we are waiting for more replies. In the coming days we will be circulating our first questionnaire to these experts wherein they will share with us their views on various ideas of space missions and related scientific aspects, which we will compile together and share openly with the expert panel along with a more refined second questionnaire. This will address very very specific questions taking into account the present space launch  capabilities of ISRO and the most critical problems we can take up together. We believe in about three rounds of questionnaires we can  prepare a refined document with about 3 to 5 mission concepts, tentative technological requirements, complementary laboratory studies and payload ideas required to accomplish the scientific goals. This refined document will be tabled on 23rd February amongst the AMP community, ISRO fraternity and international experts. During the session we will deliberate on very specific points which will be prepared in advance. This document will then be given to the Dept. of Space, Govt. of India for future planning and funding opportunities.

It is envisaged that this effort, in due course of time, will provide new opportunities for space science to grow in the Indian academia, create avenues for international collaborations and knowledge sharing. In addition it will utilize the large pool of fundamental molecular physics expertise and the associated instrumentation expertise which has evolved over decades across the country for a common goal. The efforts will focus on addressing one of the most fundamental questions in front of humankind. The question of our origin! 

We invite you to join hands and share your views openly and help us shape the baseline document which will pave way for future collaborative missions. Please write to us at ncamp23@iist.ac.in to express your interest or contribute your ideas.