Question: What made you want to be an Astrochemist?

Martin McCoustra answered on 16 Mar 2023:

I had been working with colleagues on a project trying to understand the role of ice in our own atmosphere in relation to the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere. We did this work close to the limits of what we could do in our vacuum systems. I read an article by a scientist in Manchester about astrochemistry which I sort of knew a little about. This article said there were some issues in astrochemistry about understanding surface reactions. I went to visit the author of the article, we spent a day talking about the possible ways we could bring surface science into astrochemistry and the next couple of years trying to get the money to do. I really enjoyed it and I’d credit that conversation and my first publication in an astronomy journal that followed as my entry into astrochemistry.