280508 VO Consolidation module: Physics and Chemistry of interstellar and circumstellar environments (NPI) (2012S)

The course will describe the most important components of interstellar and circumstellar environments, which include HII regions, molecular clouds, stellar winds and supernova explosions. We will focus on the physics and the chemistry of these media. The explored topics encompass the heating and cooling processes of the gas, how molecules form, survive or get destroyed, the role of dust grains in the extinction of star light, the formation of complex organic molecules in cold gas and the driving of low-mass stellar winds. Finally, the feedback of dynamical environments such as massive stellar winds and supernova explosions on the local gas will be studied.