BCGS | October 19, 16:30
Building stars, planets and the ingredients for life between the stars
One of the most exciting developments in astronomy is the discovery of planets
around stars other than our Sun. Nearly 1000 exo-planets have now been
detected. But how do these planets form, and why are they so different from
our own solar system? Which ingredients are available to build them? How are
their parent stars formed?
Thanks to powerful new telescopes, in particular the Herschel Space
Observatory and pioneering ground-based and airborne telescopes at infrared
and millimeter wavelengths, astronomers are starting to address these age-old
questions scientifically. In this talk, an overview will be given of how stars and
planets are born in the extremely cold and tenuous clouds between the stars in
the Milky Way. Special attention will be given to the formation of
protoplanetary disks in the embedded phase and their evolution. These clouds
also contain water and a surprisingly rich variety of organic material. How and
where was the water formed that is now in our oceans on Earth? Can these
organic molecules end up on new planets and form the basis for pre-biotic
material and eventually life?
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), under construction
in Chile and planned to be fully operational by late 2013, will be able to zoom
into the planet-forming zones of disks around young stars and revolutionize
this field in the near future.
Sterrewacht Leiden
Hörsaal 1
Contact: not specified