| There are over 135 different molecular species known to exist in the interstellar medium, and more are found every year. However, how these different molecular species form in the depths of space is a mystery. A few can be explained, but for most, including the most abundant molecule in the universe H2, the formation mechanism is not well understood. Part of the problem with understanding these formation mechanisms is that conditions in the interstellar medium currently cannot be recreated in the lab, and thus direct experimentation is not possible. Another issue is that the physical conditions and spatial distributions for many of the observed molecular species are not well constrained.;In order to fill in some of the blanks for the second issue, spectral line surveys of two high mass star forming regions (Sgr B2(N-LMH) and Orion-KL) were conducted. These surveys provide not just the spectra of these regions, but also measurements of the spatial scales and temperatures of the observed species, thus constraining the mechanisms by which these species form. Additionally, observations of two comets were carried out in an attempt to link the chemistry of high mass star forming regions with that of the presolar nebula.;The second chapter of this dissertation describes the methods and techniques used to analyze the data. The third chapter gives the results of the analysis of the data from the Sgr B2(N-LMH) line survey, where most large, saturated molecular species were constrained to a very small region in the cloud, with the exception of a single transition of C2H5OH which is found to be widespread. The fourth chapter gives the initial survey results for Orion-KL, a region where large N bearing species and large O bearing species occupy different spatial regions, thus giving insight into differing N and O chemistry in the interstellar medium. A more thorough analysis of the data from Orion-KL will be carried out in the future. The fifth chapter gives the 99 results of observations of two nearby comets during the summer of 2004. |
