As part of her doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Sophia Stuber is researching star formation in nearby galaxies. Shortly before Christmas, her latest article was published, in which she and her colleagues mapped the whirlpool galaxy Messier 51 in the light of the molecules hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and diazenyl (N2H+), which serve as chemical probes. In the livestream, she reveals what we can learn from this, particularly about the early phases of star formation.
