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We present a comprehensive study of the silicate features at 9.7 and 18 micron of a sample of almost 800 active galactic nuclei (AGN) with available spectra from the Spitzer InfraRed Spectrograph (IRS). We measure the strength of the…
The atmospheres of substellar objects contain clouds of oxides, iron, silicates, and other refractory condensates. Water clouds are expected in the coolest objects. The opacity of these `dust' clouds strongly affects both the atmospheric…
Clouds seem like an every-day experience. But -- do we know how clouds form on brown dwarfs and extra-solar planets? How do they look like? Can we see them? What are they composed of? Cloud formation is an old-fashioned but still…
Interstellar dust plays a crucial role in gas cooling and molecule formation, influencing galaxy evolution. However, the composition and structure of dust in distant galaxies are still poorly understood. We have started a JWST MIRI MRS…
Dust production is a fundamental aspect of the baryonic cycle of star formation. It is known that dust is injected into the interstellar medium during early star formation by supernovae and later on by evolved stars. From individual…
This study presents the first high-resolution, high-sensitivity mid-infrared (MIR) investigation of protoplanetary disks in a low-metallicity environment, using JWST/NIRCam and MIRI observations of Digel Cloud 2, a star-forming region in…
Simulations of massive star formation predict the formation of discs with significant substructure, such as spiral arms and clumps due to fragmentation. Here we present a semi-analytic framework for producing synthetic observations of discs…
Dust clouds influence the atmospheric structure of brown dwarfs, and they affect the heat transfer and change the gas-phase chemistry. However, the physics of their formation and evolution is not well understood. In this letter, we predict…
The signatures of dust processing and grain growth - related to the formation of rocky planets - are easily seen in mid-infrared spectral features. One important diagnostic tool in this context is the silicate feature in the spectra of…
We investigate the dust growth in oxygen-rich stellar outflows for a set of nine well-observed massive supergiants with optically thin dust shells. Models of the infrared emission from their circumstellar dust shells are compared to their…
Whether ice in cold cosmic environments is physically separated from the silicate dust or mixed with individual silicate moieties is not known. However, different grain models give very different compositions and temperatures of grains. The…
Multi-wavelength photometry of brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects provides insight into their atmospheres and cloud layers. We present near-simultaneous $J-$ and $K_s-$band multi-wavelength observations of the highly variable T2.5…
Studying the composition of dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) is crucial in understanding the cycle of dust in our galaxy. The mid-infrared spectral signature of amorphous silicates, the most abundant dust species in the ISM, is studied…
Silica-carbonate biomorphs are a class of emergent materials, i.e. composite microstructures made of nanometric carbonate crystallites surrounded by amorphous silica. They form via a co-precipitation process in an interplay between alkaline…
Atmospheric modeling of low-gravity (VL-G) young brown dwarfs remains a challenge. The presence of very thick clouds has been suggested because of their extremely red near-infrared (NIR) spectra, but no cloud models provide a good fit to…
Mid-infrared spectra of 65 T Tauri stars (TTS) taken with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) on board the Spitzer Space Telescope are modeled using dust at two temperatures to probe the radial variation in dust composition in the uppermost…
We present evidence of a >10-sigma detection of the 10 micron silicate dust absorption feature in the spectrum of the gravitationally lensed quasar PKS 1830-211, produced by a foreground absorption system at redshift 0.886. We have examined…
We report on our first results from a mid-infrared spectroscopic study of ISM features in a sample of deeply obscured ULIRG nuclei using the InfraRed Spectrograph (IRS) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. The spectra are extremely rich and…
We present new mid-infrared observations of objects in the vicinity of the O-star sigma Orionis, obtained with TIMMI-2 at ESO. By constraining their near- and mid-infrared spectral energy distributions, we established the nature of…
Clouds are ubiquitous in extrasolar planet atmospheres and are critical to our understanding of planetary climate and chemistry. They also represent one of the greater challenges to overcome when trying to interpret transit transmission…