The discovery through planetary missions and remote sensing, of the common occurrence and immense variety of planetary environments offers both challenge and opportunity to chemists. We are liberated from the constraint of one Earth, one geotherm (pressure temperature regime), one planetary composition. I invite you to ponder the new chemical reactions and compounds that might occur in alien environments by presenting four scenarios. The first is the interior of giant gaseous planets like Jupiter. There one goes from a dilute gaseous outer atmosphere to a dense reactive fluid to a plasma at the verge of nuclear ignition with temperature and pressure rising from the ordinary to the astronomical. We observe changes in the red spot, a huge and ever changing storm of centuries duration. What major and minor chemical species give it its color, viscosity, and other physical and transport properties?  At greater depth but before most chemistry is obliterated by the formation of a plasma, are there regions of superconductivity and other unusual behavior, with new compounds as both solids and dense fluid mixtures? The second is the environment on the moons of the outer icy planets. Here there is evidence of hydrocarbon lakes at cryogenic temperatures at the surface. What chemistry occurs within them and on their shorelines? At greater depths, there are suggestions of buried aqueous oceans with temperature and other conditions perhaps friendly to life. Do these aqueous or hydrothermal environments communicate with the shallower organic environments? Are they a primordial soup for prebiotic and biological reactions?  The third is the atmosphere and surface of Venus, exhibiting a CO<sub>2</sub>-rich atmosphere at pressures of xx x and temperatures of xxx. Is this not a wonderful environment for chemical synthesis in supercritical CO<sub>2</sub>?  The fourth is the surface of the planet Mercury, where high temperatures, the absence of an atmosphere and continuous bombardment by both radiation and impacts may maintain a highly reduced environment conducive to the formation of metallic alloys. Is this a natural laboratory for the currently fashionable high entropy alloys?

New worlds, new whemistry

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.