Related papers: Water shielding in the terrestrial planet-forming …
Photochemical hazes are expected to form and significantly contribute to the chemical and radiative balance of exoplanets with relatively moderate temperatures, possibly in the habitable zone of their host star. In the presence of humidity,…
It is now understood that the accretion of terrestrial planets naturally involves giant collisions, the moon-forming impact being a well known example. In the aftermath of such collisions the surface of the surviving planet is very hot and…
The radial-dependent positions of snowlines of abundant oxygen- and carbon-bearing molecules in protoplanetary discs will result in systematic radial variations in the C/O ratios in the gas and ice. This variation is proposed as a tracer of…
The origin of complex organic molecules such as amino acids and their precursors found in meteorites and comets is unknown. Previous studies have accounted for the complex organic inventory of the Solar System by aqueous chemistry on warm…
Sun like stars are born from the collapse of fragment of molecular clouds. During the first embedded phase (the so called class 0/1), the protostar is surrounded by a collapsing envelope, whose physical and chemical structure would set up…
`Water In Star-forming regions with Herschel' (WISH) is a key program on the Herschel Space Observatory designed to probe the physical and chemical structure of young stellar objects using water and related molecules and to follow the water…
Quantifying the composition of the material in protoplanetary disks is paramount to determining the potential for exoplanetary systems to produce and support habitable environments. A key complex organic molecule (COM) to detect is methanol…
Most stars are born in stellar clusters and their protoplanetary disks, which are the birthplaces of planets, can therefore be affected by the radiation of nearby massive stars. However, little is known about the chemistry of externally…
Water is a molecule that is tightly related to many facets of star and planet formation. Water's abundance and distribution, especially the location of it's snowline has thus been the subject of much study. While water is seen to be…
We are on the verge of characterizing the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zones of M dwarf stars. Due to their large planet-to-star radius ratios and higher frequency of transits, terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M…
Observations of low-mass protostellar systems show evidence of rich complex organic chemistry. Their low luminosity, however, makes determining abundance distributions of complex organic molecules (COMs) within the water snowline…
Many planets in the solar system and across the galaxy have hydrogen-rich atmospheres overlying more heavy element-rich interiors with which they interact for billions of years. Atmosphere-interior interactions are thus crucial to…
Volatiles like $H_2O$ are present as ice in solids in the outer cold regions of protoplanetary disks and as vapor in the warm inner regions within the water snow line. Icy pebbles drifting inwards from the outer disk sublimate after…
Low-mass protostars are the extrasolar analogues of the natal Solar System. Sophisticated physicochemical models are used to simulate the formation of two protoplanetary discs from the initial prestellar phase, one dominated by viscous…
Refractory organic compounds formed in molecular clouds are among the building blocks of the solar system objects and could be the precursors of organic matter found in primitive meteorites and cometary materials. However, little is known…
Water ice is expected to be the dominant volatile component of bodies formed in the outer Solar System. However, recent observations of comets and trans-Neptunian objects suggest that the relative abundances of ices can vary substantially,…
Planets form in disks of gas and dust around young stars. The disk molecular reservoirs and their chemical evolution affect all aspects of planet formation, from the coagulation of dust grains into pebbles, to the elemental and molecular…
Using forward models for representative exoplanet atmospheres and a radiometric instrument model, we have generated synthetic observational data to explore how well the major C- and O-bearing chemical species (CO, CO2, CH4, and H2O),…
The C/O ratio is predicted to regulate the atmospheric chemistry in hot Jupiters. Recent observations suggest that some exo-planets, e.g. Wasp 12- b, have atmospheric C/O ratios substantially different from the solar value of 0.54. In this…
Unveiling the physical structure of protoplanetary disk is crucial for interpreting the diversity of the exoplanet population. Until recently, the census of the physical properties of protoplanetary disks probed by mid-infrared observations…