https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-025-00984-1
Roadmap
Roadmap on carbon molecular nanostructures in space
1
Department of Physics, Center for Joint Quantum Studies, School of Science, Tianjin University, 92 Weijin Road, 300072, Tianjin, China
2
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Vía Láctea s/n, 38205, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
3
Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Avenida Astrofísica Francisco Sánchez s/n, 38200, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
4
School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
5
Department of Physics, Ewha Womans University, 03760, Seoul, Republic of Korea
6
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dogus University, 34775, Istanbul, Türkiye
7
Centre de Recherche sur les Ions, les Materiaux et la Photonique, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CEA, CNRS, CIMAP, Normandie University, 14000, Caen, France
8
Laboratory Astrophysics Group, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Institute of Solid State Physics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Helmholtzweg 3, 07743, Jena, Germany
9
CNRS, Institut des Materiaux de Nantes Jean Rouxel, Nantes Université, Nantes, France
10
Joz̆ef Stefan Institute, Jamova Cesta 39, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
11
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
12
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
13
Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, N5X 3R3, London, ON, Canada
14
The Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, N5X 3R3, London, ON, Canada
15
SETI Institute, 339 Bernardo Ave, Suite 200, 94043, Mountain View, CA, USA
16
Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, 21218, Baltimore, MD, USA
17
Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands
18
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain
19
CERGA, ACRI-ST, 260 Route du Pin Montard, 06904, Sophia Antopolis, France
20
European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Santiago, Chile
21
CNRS, Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France
22
Institut für Astro- und Teilchenphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25/8, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
23
Lennard–Jones Laboratories, Keele University, ST5 5BG, Keele, UK
24
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, 80303, Boulder, CO, USA
25
School of Astronomy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, 9395-5531, Tehran, Iran
26
Space Science and Astrobiology Division, NASA Ames Research Center, 94035, Moffett Field, CA, USA
27
CNRS, CNES, UPS, Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Université de Toulouse, 9 Av. du colonel Roche, 31028, Toulouse, France
28
Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), 09047, Selargius, Italy
29
CNRS, Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405, Orsay, France
30
School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University, Glasnevin Campus, Dublin, Ireland
31
MOE Key Laboratory for Non-Equilibrium Synthesis and Modulation of Condensed Matter, School of Physics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 28 Xianning West Rd., 710049, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
32
Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (IGN), C/ Alfonso XII 3, 28014, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
33
Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala Space Observatory, 439 92, Onsala, Sweden
34
Department of Physical Chemistry, Ruđer Bošković Institute, Bijenička 54, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia
35
Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Zagreb, Kačićeva 26, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia
36
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
37
Department of Geosciences, Stony Brook University, 11794, Stony Brook, NY, USA
38
FELIX Laboratory, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Radboud University, Toernooiveld 7 6525 ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
39
Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Pisa, largo B. Pontecorvo 3, 56127, Pisa, Italy
40
Department of Information and Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 137, 84084, Fisciano, SA, Italy
41
Department of Physics and Mathematics, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistokatu, 7, 80100, Joensuu, Finland
42
COSYS/IMSE, Université Gustave Eiffel, 5 Bd Descartes, 77454, Champs sur Marne, France
43
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, King Saud University, 11451, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
44
Analytical Mineralogy Group, Institute of Geosciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Lessingstr. 14, 07743, Jena, Germany
45
Department of Physics, Gebze Technical University, 41400, Gebze, Kocaeli, Türkiye
46
Department of Physics, Stockholm University, 10691, Stockholm, SE, Sweden
47
School of Chemistry, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
48
J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, Dolejs̆kova 2155/3, 18223, Prague, Czech Republic
49
Department of Chemistry, Kindai University, Kowakae 3-4-1, 577-8502, Higashi-Osaka, Japan
50
Institute for Ion Physics and Applied Physics, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
51
Physics of the Interactions of Ions and Molecules (PIIM), Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS, Campus Etoile, 13013, Marseille, France
52
HUN-REN Institute for Nuclear Research (ATOMKI), Debrecen, Hungary
53
Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, Anhui, China
54
Institute of Materials, China Academy of Engineering Physics, P.O. Box 9071, 621907, Jiangyou, Sichuan, China
55
Brimrose Corporation of America, Sparks Glencoe, MD, USA
56
Hampton University, Hampton, USA
57
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
58
Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, Edgewood, USA
59
National Polytechnic University of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia
60
Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
61
Department of Mathematics, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
62
Department of Physics, School of Advanced Sciences, Vellore Institute of Technology, Tiruvalam Road, 632014, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
63
’Acad. E. Djakov’ Institute of Electronics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
64
Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Aalto University, Kemistintie 1, 02150, Espoo, Finland
65
Laboratory for Space Research, Faculty of Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (SAR), China
66
Dipartimento di Chimica Biologia e Biotecnologie, Università di Perugia, 06123, Perugia, Italy
67
Institute of Chemical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, EH14 4AS, Edinburgh, Scotland
68
Materials Research, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Planckstr. 1, 64291, Darmstadt, Germany
69
Institute of Materials Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Peter-Grünberg-Str. 16, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany
70
ISAMM, Université de la Manouba, 2010, Manouba, Tunisia
71
Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, LPMC, Université Tunis el Manar, 2092, Tunis, Tunisia
72
LUPM, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, 34095, Montpellier, France
73
Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, 115201, Taipei, Taiwan
74
Physics Division, National Center for Theoretical Sciences, 106319, Taipei, Taiwan
75
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, 01187, Dresden, Germany
76
Department of Physics, National Central University, No. 300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli District, 320317, Taoyuan City, Taiwan
77
Universidade da Coruña (UDC), A Coruña, Spain
78
Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías de la Información y las comunicaciones de Coruña (CITIC), A Coruña, Spain
Received:
9
October
2024
Accepted:
11
March
2025
Published online:
4
August
2025
In this roadmap article, we consider the main challenges and recent breakthroughs in understanding the role of carbon molecular nanostructures in space and propose future avenues of research. The focus lies on small carbon-containing molecules up to fullerenes, extending to even larger, more complex organic species. The roadmap contains forty contributions from scientists with leading expertize in observational astronomy, laboratory astrophysics/chemistry, astrobiology, theoretical chemistry, synthetic chemistry, molecular reaction dynamics, material science, spectroscopy, graph theory, and data science. The concerted interdisciplinary combination of the state-of-the-art of these astronomical, laboratory, and theoretical studies opens up new ways to advance the fundamental understanding of the physics and chemistry of cosmic carbon molecular nanostructures and touches on their wider relevance and impact in nanotechnology and catalysis.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
