Recent astronomy highlights from the Odin satellite Original Research Article

Astronomy highlights, mainly from the third year of Odin observations – time shared 50/50% with aeronomy – are presented: the very low O2 abundance limits achieved, the highly pressure broadened absorption lines of H2O, H218O, and CO (5 → 4) in the atmosphere of Mars, the high precision H2O and H218O observations of comets, the detections of NH3 and H2O around the C-rich star IRC+10216 (CW Leo) and of H2O around the O-rich star W Hya, NH3 and H2O observations of infall/outflow interactions, observations of H2O, H218O, H217O as well as NH3 and 15NH3 in multiple absorptions towards Sgr B2, and in emission towards Orion KL, the H2O detection of several new outflows in the DR21 W75S region. We also discuss the results of deconvolution of high S/N H2O, CO and 13CO (5 → 4) maps of the Orion KL region to 40″ resolution (the beam size of the Herschel telescope) and the first results from our ongoing “spectral scan” of Orion KL in bands around 555 and 570 GHz. Finally, a search for primordial molecules is presented.