From Protoplanetary Disks to Extrasolar Planets: Understanding the Life Cycle of Circumstellar Gas with Ultraviolet Spectroscopy

Few scientific discoveries have captured the public imagination like the explosion of exoplanetary science during the past two decades. This work has fundamentally changed our picture of Earth's place in the Universe and led NASA to make significant investments towards understanding the demogra...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2012-08
Main Authors: France, Kevin, Beasley, Matthew, Ardila, David R, Bergin, Edwin A, Brown, Alexander, Burgh, Eric B, Calvet, Nuria, Chiang, Eugene, Cook, Timothy A, Jean-Michel Désert, Ebbets, Dennis, Froning, Cynthia S, Green, James C, Hillenbrand, Lynne A, Johns-Krull, Christopher M, Koskinen, Tommi T, Linsky, Jeffrey L, Redfield, Seth, Roberge, Aki, Schindhelm, Rebecca, Scowen, Paul A, Stapelfeldt, Karl R, Tumlinson, Jason
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accretion disks
Astrophysics
Cosmic dust
Demographics
Extrasolar planets
Initial conditions
Planet formation
Planetary atmospheres
Planetary systems
Protoplanetary disks
Protoplanets
Protostars
Star formation
Universe
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Few scientific discoveries have captured the public imagination like the explosion of exoplanetary science during the past two decades. This work has fundamentally changed our picture of Earth's place in the Universe and led NASA to make significant investments towards understanding the demographics of exoplanetary systems and the conditions that lead to their formation. The story of the formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems is essentially the story of the circumstellar gas and dust that are initially present in the protostellar environment; in order to understand the variety of planetary systems observed, we need to understand the life cycle of circumstellar gas from its initial conditions in protoplanetary disks to its endpoint as planets and their atmospheres. In this white paper response to NASA's Request for Information "Science Objectives and Requirements for the Next NASA UV/Visible Astrophysics Mission Concepts (NNH12ZDA008L)", we describe scientific programs that would use the unique capabilities of a future NASA ultraviolet (UV)/visible space observatory to make order-of-magnitude advances in our understanding of the life cycle of circumstellar gas.
ISSN:2331-8422