Advances in pursuit of fluorine in the interstellar medium and beyond: relevance to its terrestrial chemistry

International audience ; Fluorine plays a significant role in the geochemical world, despite its low abundance. The presence of fluorine and fluorinated moieties in chemical compounds results in significant changes in their physicochemical and biological properties. Therefore, the study of the origin and abundance of fluorine not only here on Earth but in any region outside of Earth- in other planets, stars and star-forming galaxies, circumstellar, interstellar media (ISM), and the protoplanetary regions, is vital and can contribute significantly to our knowledge on its relevance to its terrestrial origin, abundance, and its chemistry. With an introduction on the formation, presence, and significance of fluorine and its compounds under terrestrial context, the present review attempts to consolidate the literature on the search for fluorine, fluorides and fluorinated ions in the extraterrestrial region, its abundance as well as their implications in both terrestrial and extraterrestrial fluorine chemistry. Revealed through a continued search over many decades, its formation and significant abundance in asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and Wolf-Rayet stars, in neutrino spallation during supernovae (type II), or even in far distant star-forming galaxy indicate the possible ubiquity of fluorine in the vast stellar and diffuse interstellar medium. Because of the growing influence of fluorine in the terrestrial world, studying the fluorine effect in extraterrestrial atmosphere is quite intriguing.