Deciphering the building blocks of rocky planets using JWST spectra of planet forming disks

Descripción del proyecto

Estudio de la formación de planetas rocosos con los espectros del telescopio espacial James Webb

El telescopio espacial James Webb examinó por primera vez a los entornos de formación de planetas rocosos en torno a estrellas T Tauri y de masa muy baja. Los datos indican que el gas del disco alrededor de las estrellas T Tauri es rico en oxígeno, mientras que alrededor de las estrellas de masa muy baja predomina el carbono. En el proyecto DISKS-ROCK, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, se emplearán estos datos para determinar los componentes básicos de los planetas rocosos. Los resultados situarán a la Tierra en un contexto galáctico más amplio y aportarán información clave para futuras misiones en la búsqueda de vida. Para lograrlo, se desarrollará un novedoso marco de modelización bidimensional que integre procesos físicos, químicos y dinámicos, con el fin de acotar la evolución de los discos durante la fase inicial de formación de planetas rocosos, empleando datos de muestras de discos estadísticamente representativas.

Objetivo

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now peers for the first time into the rocky planet birth environments around Solar-type (T Tauri - TT) and Very Low Mass stars (VLMS) with ages of 1-4 Myr. The data shows that disk gas around TT stars is oxygen-rich, while it is carbon-rich around VLMS; yet they formed inside the same molecular cloud. VLMS are the most abundant stars in the galaxy, hosting most rocky exoplanets known to date, making them key targets to search for life. Yet today, it is paramount that we understand what causes this apparent difference, and the implications for the composition of forming planets and their evolution.
JWST mid-infrared spectra contain a forest of molecular emissions which carries the complete information (gas and solids) about the planet forming environment in a complex way. The overarching aim of DISKS-ROCK is to thus characterize the current planet birth environments across stellar mass and to constrain disk evolution during the early build-up phase of rocky planets.
I will draw from my expertise in thermo-chemical disk modeling, chemistry and mid-infrared spectroscopy to develop a novel, consistent and comprehensive 2D modeling framework to decipher the evolution that led to the apparent differences in gas composition between TT and VLMS. The key to fully exploit JWST data lies in quantifying how disk substructure formation, transport processes from the outer disk, and gas and dust chemical interaction shape the molecular emission spectra of the inner disks.
DISKS-ROCK will characterize the current birth environment of planets and constrain disk evolution during the early build-up phase of rocky planets for a statistically relevant sample of ~50 disks. This will establish whether planets around VLMS and TT stars assemble from the same material and follow similar evolution paths. The results of DISKS-ROCK will put our own Earth into the larger galactic context and provide crucial input to future missions searching for life.