Welcome

Galaxies, like our Milky Way, contain more than just stars. Gas and dust, called interstellar matter (ISM), fills the space between the stars. From the densest parts of the ISM stars and planets are formed, in all galaxies. Furthermore, the ISM is the main reservoir from which supermassive black holes inside active galaxies grow. The Groningen ISM group studies the properties of this ISM, the processes that lead to star and planet formation, also in the early universe, and the properties of supermassive black holes. In this, we use far-infrared/sub-mm line and continuum observations, specifically ALMA in the near future, to probe the star-forming ISM and we construct theoretical and numerical models to describe it. There are a number of interconnected lines of research that we pursue at the moment.

The group meetings are generally held at a biweekly interval, at 14:00 on Tuesdays. Meetings are organized and announced by the chairperson of the group, currently Giambattista Aresu.

Involved projects

Herschel, HIFI, Gould’s Belt Survey, Spectral Legacy Survey, FEPS, C2D, ISO, CSO, JCMT/HARP-B, Effelsberg, 2MASS, IRAM, Spitzer, MSX, Akari, FCRAO and in the future JCMT-SCUBA2, SOFIA, ALMA and Millimetron.