Astrochemistry: The study of chemical processes in space.

The formation of our solar system occurred approximately 4.6 billion years ago as a result of the gravitational collapse of a small portion of a giant molecular cloud. The origin of life on Earth is yet to be fully understood.

Electric field-driven up-and-down motion of the flexible tail of Al cluster system-a nano-scale flipper.

Context: Dynamic metal nanoclusters have become a hot area of research in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology due to their potential applications in micro devices. One such dynamic cluster is a quasi-planar ground state (GS) Al cluster which exhibits an electric field driven up and down flipping motion of the flexible tail which oscillates with respect to the mean plane. A Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics (CPMD) simulation has been carried out to understand the nature of dynamics of the cluster.