Organic Molecules and Water in the Planet Formation Region of Young Circumstellar Disks

Science ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 319 (5869) ◽  
pp. 1504-1506 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Carr ◽  
J. R. Najita
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S249) ◽  
pp. 233-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean N. Raymond

AbstractTerrestrial planets form in a series of dynamical steps from the solid component of circumstellar disks. First, km-sized planetesimals form likely via a combination of sticky collisions, turbulent concentration of solids, and gravitational collapse from micron-sized dust grains in the thin disk midplane. Second, planetesimals coalesce to form Moon- to Mars-sized protoplanets, also called “planetary embryos”. Finally, full-sized terrestrial planets accrete from protoplanets and planetesimals. This final stage of accretion lasts about 10-100 Myr and is strongly affected by gravitational perturbations from any gas giant planets, which are constrained to form more quickly, during the 1-10 Myr lifetime of the gaseous component of the disk. It is during this final stage that the bulk compositions and volatile (e.g., water) contents of terrestrial planets are set, depending on their feeding zones and the amount of radial mixing that occurs. The main factors that influence terrestrial planet formation are the mass and surface density profile of the disk, and the perturbations from giant planets and binary companions if they exist. Simple accretion models predicts that low-mass stars should form small, dry planets in their habitable zones. The migration of a giant planet through a disk of rocky bodies does not completely impede terrestrial planet growth. Rather, “hot Jupiter” systems are likely to also contain exterior, very water-rich Earth-like planets, and also “hot Earths”, very close-in rocky planets. Roughly one third of the known systems of extra-solar (giant) planets could allow a terrestrial planet to form in the habitable zone.


2013 ◽  
Vol 766 (2) ◽  
pp. 134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan R. Najita ◽  
John S. Carr ◽  
Klaus M. Pontoppidan ◽  
Colette Salyk ◽  
Ewine F. van Dishoeck ◽  
...  

2004 ◽  
Vol 221 ◽  
pp. 417-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michihiro Takami ◽  
Jeremy Bailey ◽  
Antonio Chrysostomou ◽  
Motohide Tamura ◽  
Hiroshi Terada

The circumstellar environment within 10 AU of young stars are of particular interest for star and planet formation. Unfortunately, present imaging facilities such as the Hubble Space Telescope or adaptive optics on 10-m telescopes cannot resolve this region. We have proved that “spectro-astrometry” is a powerful technique for discovering pre-main-sequence binaries, determining kinematics of outflows and providing evidence for gaps in circumstellar disks — all down to AU scales. In this paper, we summarise our progress to date.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (S299) ◽  
pp. 151-152
Author(s):  
Hannah Broekhoven-Fiene ◽  
Brenda C. Matthews ◽  
Paul M. Harvey ◽  

AbstractThe Auriga-California Molecular Cloud (AMC) is one of two nearby (within 500 pc) giant molecular clouds, the other being the Orion A Molecular Cloud (OMC). We aim to study the properties of circumstellar disks in the AMC to compare the planet formation potential and processes within the AMC to those for other clouds. A first look with measurements from Spitzer observations suggests that AMC disk properties, such as the distribution of disk luminosities and the evolution of the mid-IR excesses, are not vastly different from those in other regions. Follow-up observations in the submm, mm and cm can be used to measure disk masses and the degree of grain growth from spectral slopes to more completely characterize the disk population.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (S299) ◽  
pp. 230-231
Author(s):  
Alycia J. Weinberger ◽  
Alan P. Boss ◽  
Guillem Anglada-Escudé

AbstractWe present preliminary astrometric results aimed at understanding the lifetime of circumstellar disks and potential for planet formation. We have obtained parallaxes to stars in the TW Hydrae, Upper Scorpius, and Chamaeleon I stellar associations. These enable new estimates for the ages of the stars. We are also performing the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search of nearby low mass stars for gas giant planets on wide orbits. We have our first candidate around a mature brown dwarf.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S276) ◽  
pp. 434-435
Author(s):  
David Kirsh ◽  
Ralph Pudritz

AbstractPlanetesimal formation occurs early in the evolution of a solar system, embedded in the circumstellar gas disk, and it is the crucial first step in planet formation. Their growth is difficult beyond boulder size, and likely proceeds via the accumulation of many rocks in turbulence followed by gravitational collapse - a process we are only beginning to understand. We have performed global simulations of the gas disk with embedded particles in the FLASH code. Particles and gas feel drag based on differential velocities and densities. Grains and boulders of various sizes have been investigated, from micron to km, with the goal of understanding where in the disk large planetesimals will tend to form, what sizes will result, and what size ranges of grains will be preferentially incorporated. We have so far simulated particles vertical settling and radial drift under the influence of gas drag, and their accumulations in turbulent clumps.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merel van 't Hoff ◽  
Edwin Bergin ◽  
Jes Jorgensen ◽  
Geoffrey Blake

<p>One of the main goals in the fields of exoplanets and planet formation is to determine the composition of terrestrial, potentially habitable, planets and to link this to the composition of protoplanetary disks. A longstanding puzzle in this regard is the Earth's severe carbon deficit; Earth is 2-4 orders of magnitude depleted in carbon compared to interstellar grains and comets. The solution to this conundrum is that carbon must have been returned to the gas phase in the inner protosolar nebula, such that it could not get accreted onto the forming bodies. A process that could be responsible is the sublimation of carbon grains at the so-called soot line (~300 K) early in the planet-formation process. I will argue that the most likely signatures of this process are an excess of hydrocarbons and nitriles inside the soot line around protostars, and a higher excitation temperature for these molecules compared to oxygen-bearing complex organics that desorb around the water snowline (~100 K). Moreover, I will show that such characteristics have indeed been reported in the literature, for example, in Orion KL, although not uniformly, potentially due to differences in observational settings or related to the episodic nature of protostellar accretion. If this process is active, this would mean that there is an heretofore unrecognized component to the carbon chemistry during the protostellar phase that is acting from the top down - starting from the destruction of larger species - instead of from the bottom up from atoms. In the presence of such a top-down component, the origin of organic molecules needs to be re-explored. </p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Podio ◽  
Antonio Garufi ◽  
Claudio Codella ◽  
Davide Fedele ◽  
Kazi Rygl ◽  
...  

<p>How have planets formed in the Solar System? And what chemical composition they inherited from their natal environment? Is the chemical composition passed unaltered from the earliest stages of the formation of the Sun to its disk and then to the planets which assembled in the disk? Or does it reflects chemical processes occurring in the disk and/or during the planet formation process? And what was the role of comets in the delivery of volatiles and prebiotic compounds to early Earth?</p> <p>A viable way to answer these questions is to observe protoplanetary disks around young Sun-like stars and compare their chemical composition with that of the early Solar System, which is imprinted in comets. The impacting images recently obtained by millimetre arrays of antennas such as ALMA provided the first observational evidence of ongoing planet formation in 0.1-1 million years old disks, through rings and gaps in their dust and gas distribution. The chemical composition of the forming planets and small bodies clearly depends on the location and timescale for their formation and is intimately connected to the spatial distribution and abundance of the various molecular species in the disk. The chemical characterisation of disks is therefore crucial.</p> <p>This field, however, is still in its infancy, because of the small sizes of disks (~100 au) and to the low gas-phase abundance of molecules (abundances with respect to H<sub>2</sub> down to 10<sup>-12</sup>), which requires an unprecedented combination of angular resolution and sensitivity. I will show the first pioneering results obtained as part of the ALMA chemical survey of protoplanetary disks in the Taurus star forming region (ALMA-DOT program). Thanks to the ALMA images at ~20 au resolution, we recovered the radial distribution and abundance of diatomic molecules (CO and CN), S-bearing molecules (CS, SO, SO<sub>2</sub>, H<sub>2</sub>CS), as well as simple organics (H<sub>2</sub>CO and CH<sub>3</sub>OH) which are key for the formation of prebiotic compounds. Enhanced H<sub>2</sub>CO emission in the cold outer disk, outside the CO snowline, suggests that organic molecules may be efficiently formed in disks on the icy mantles of dust grain. This could be the dawn of ice chemistry in the disk, producing ices rich of complex organic molecules (COMs) which could be incorporated by the bodies forming in the outer disk region, such as comets.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p>The next step is the comparison of the molecules radial distribution and abundance in disks with the chemical composition of comets, which are the leftover building blocks of giant planet cores and other planetary bodies. The first pioneering results in this direction have been obtained thanks to the ESA’s <em>Rosetta </em>mission, which allowed obtaining in situ measurements of the COMs abundance on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comparison with three protostellar solar analogs observed on Solar System scales has shown comparable COMs abundance, implying that the volatile composition of comets and planetesimals may be partially inherited from the protostellar stage. The advent of new mission, devoted to sample return such as AMBITION will allow us to do a step ahead in this direction.</p> <p> </p>


2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui-Chun Huang ◽  
Yi-Jehng Kuan ◽  
Steven B. Charnley ◽  
Naomi Hirano ◽  
Shigehisa Takakuwa ◽  
...  

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