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

Descrizione del progetto

Gli spettri del JWST per esaminare la formazione dei pianeti rocciosi

Il James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) scruta per la prima volta gli ambienti di formazione dei pianeti rocciosi intorno alle stelle T Tauri (TT) e di massa molto bassa (VLMS). Il gas è risultato ricco di ossigeno nei dischi TT e ricco di carbonio nei dischi VLMS. Il progetto DISKS-ROCK, finanziato dal CER, utilizzerà i dati del JWST per decifrare gli elementi costitutivi dei pianeti rocciosi. I risultati collocheranno la nostra Terra nel più ampio contesto galattico e forniranno input cruciali per le future missioni alla ricerca della vita. A tal fine, il progetto svilupperà un’innovativa struttura di modellazione bidimensionale che include processi fisici, chimici e dinamici per vincolare l’evoluzione del disco durante la fase iniziale di formazione dei pianeti rocciosi, utilizzando dati provenienti da campioni di dischi statisticamente rilevanti.

Obiettivo

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.