The 2010 Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting is at
the University of Glasgow 12-16 April. This year, the Astrochemistry
Group of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Society of
Chemistry are organizing a parallel session, "A new era in
astrochemical star formation", scheduled for Wednesday 14th April,
10:45am to 12:30 pm. We welcome both oral and poster contributions
from all areas of astrochemistry associated with star formation in the
near and far universe, including observational research, theoretical
modelling and laboratory work.

This session will provide an overview of current research in
astrochemistry, bringing together the fields of observational
astronomy, theoretical modelling, and laboratory astrochemistry.  The
emphasis will be on astrochemical research in areas that will reap the
benefits of current and planned missions such as JCMT, Herschel, ALMA
and JWST, particularly areas associated with star formation in both
the near and far universe.

This is an exciting time for the study of astrochemical processes in
the far universe. Detections of water ice, amorphous and aromatic
hydrocarbons at redshifts ~2, and detections in the early universe
(e.g. CO at z~6) are providing the stimulus for research into star
formation in high redshift galaxies, where very different physical
parameters are needed for models.

In the nearby universe, the improved spatial and spectral resolution
offered by new instrumentation will strongly influence models of star
and planet formation, enabling, even enforcing, the inclusion of
dynamics in chemical models of, for example, nearby circumstellar
disks.  Such models and observations also require interaction with
developing laboratory studies.  Our new view of the molecular
complexity in the local galaxy will change dramatically the
understanding of formation processes and evolutionary stages.

The parallel sessions are relatively short, and so we will be
organizing a small number of short talks that will showcase current
and future research in the field, along with a larger number of poster
contributions which are a big feature of the RAS NAM2010. Details of
the conference and registration procedures are on the web site
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/nam2010/