Evolution of ices: From molecular cloud to ocean

各种形式的冰在我们的银河系中被发现，从恒星和行星形成的大型“分子云”，在星际空间，在我们自己的太阳系，在地球表面，木星和土星的卫星，小行星和彗星上。水很可能是在地球形成的几年里由彗星和小行星的撞击输送到地球的，这种事件在6000万年前灭绝了恐龙。此外，这些撞击物体携带有机物质，这可能对地球上生命的出现至关重要：彗星和小行星带来了生命和死亡！该项目将研究宇宙冰如何从胚胎恒星的环境演变为太阳系中的冰甚至海洋。我们将使用实验室实验，包括世界上最强大的光源，牛津郡的钻石光源，研究冰在暴露于模拟宇宙环境（如宇宙辐射和紫外线）时如何变化。这项工作可能会让我们了解地球上的生命是如何开始的。

Ices of various forms are found throughout our Milky Way Galaxy, from the large "molecular clouds" in which stars and planets form, in interstellar space, and in our own Solar System, on the surfaces of the Earth, the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, on asteroids, and on comets. It is very likely that water was delivered to the Earth during its formative years by the impacts of comets and asteroids in the kind of event that exterminated the dinosaurs 60 million years ago. Furthermore, these impacting bodies carry organic material, which may have been crucial to the emergence of life on Earth: comets and asteroids bring life and death! This project will study how cosmic ice evolves, from the environments of embryonic stars, to the ices and even oceans in the Solar System. We will be using laboratory experiments, including the world's most powerful light source, the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, to study how the ices change as they are exposed to simulated cosmic environments such as cosmic radiation and ultraviolet light. This work might give us a glimpse as to how life began on Earth.