I completed a Ph.D. in the Astrophysics group at the University of Bristol . My degree was in Chemistry , also at the University of Bristol. If you're wondering how I managed to migrate from chemistry to astrophysics, the final year project of my degree was astrophysical chemistry. I don't currently have any plans to work any more on astrophysics research. Masers are m icrowave a mplification by s timulated e mission of r adiation.
Masers arise naturally in space, in clouds of warm dust and gas.
Hydroxyl molecules also arise naturally in space, typically by uv photodissociation of water molecules. My work over several years is contained in my Ph.D. thesis. It is in zipped postscript form and is 4.4 MB in size. Postscript is a standard printer format. However, most printers these days aren't postscript printers, and if you try to print postscript on these it will go horribly wrong and will print pages of garbage text.