Scientometric insights into laboratory astrochemistry: An umbrella review of review articles

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Laboratory astrochemistry has evolved into one of the most dynamic interdisciplinary fields at the intersection of astrophysics, physical chemistry, and astrobiology. This study presents the first comprehensive scientometric review of 62 review articles published between 2002 and 2026. Using Scopus data, we analyzed publication trends, thematic evolution, geographic distribution, the journal landscape, authorship patterns, and citation networks. The results reveal a significant increase in review activity after 2017, with 77.4% of all reviews appearing in that year. The review literature in this field has shifted its focus from traditional interstellar ice spectroscopy to computational chemistry and prebiotic chemistry, particularly complex organic molecules. The United States and European countries dominate review publishing, while the journal landscape has significantly diversified toward high-impact, interdisciplinary outlets. These findings indicate that review literature increasingly reflects the growing maturity and interdisciplinarity of laboratory astrochemistry combining experimental, computational, and observational approaches to studying chemical evolution in the Universe. The analysis also highlights several significant gaps in the existing literature on the topic. These include limited coverage of the chemistry of multicomponent interstellar ices and insufficient integration of laboratory data with recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations.