Chemical reactions with activation barriers generally slow to a halt in the extreme cold of dense interstellar clouds. Low-temperature experiments on the reaction of OH with methanol have now shown that below 200 K there is a major acceleration in the rate that can only be explained by enhanced quantum mechanical tunnelling through the barrier.
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Sims, I. Tunnelling in space. Nature Chem 5, 734–736 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1736
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1736
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