Physics and chemistry of star forming regions at different Galactocentric distances

Recent theories propose that life appeared on Earth soon after the arrival of extraterrestrial organic material on its surface by the impact of meteorites and comets, whose chemical composition could be inherited from the parental, interstellar molecular cloud core.
The chemical composition of star-forming cores has been mostly studied so far in the close proximity of the Solar circle. The outer Galaxy, characterised by sub-Solar metallicities, was believed to be a hostile environment for molecules, but recent results have challenged this traditional view, and suggested that the outer Galaxy is as rich in organic molecules as the local Galaxy.

This master thesis focuses on the analysis and interpretation of the dataset produced within the CHEMOUT project, which investigates the chemical composition of star-forming cores located in the sub-Solar metallicity environment of the outer Galaxy. The work includes analysis and statistical exploitation of the dataset, as well as the development of tools and methods to extract physical and chemical properties. The thesis will contribute to understand if and how different Galactic environments influence the chemical ingredients for life, and will give crucial insights to reveal how universal or diverse the processes of molecular formation are.