A Mid-IR Study of Protoplanetary & Debris Disks around Intermediate-Mass Stars

《中等质量恒星周围原行星和碎片盘的中红外研究》，了解行星的诞生和演化是现代天文学中最有趣和最具挑战性的任务之一。在此期间，PI和他的团队将使用最先进的红外成像仪（主要由他们自己建造）来对圆盘中热尘埃的分布进行成像。这些成像仪将被用于世界上许多最大的800米和1000米望远镜。它们对距离恒星几百个天文单位的尘埃发出的8到25微米的中红外辐射很敏感。关键的项目目标是严格限制合并和行星形成的过程，并寻找由已经形成的行星影响造成的圆盘扭曲和其他特征

Telesco, Charles"A Mid-IR Study of Protoplanetary & Debris Disks around Intermediate-Mass Stars"AST-0098392Understanding the birth and evolution of planets is one of the most intriguing and challenging tasks in modern astronomy. During the period of this award, the PI and his team will use state-of-the-art infrared imagers, built mainly by themselves, to image the distribution of warm dust in disks. The imagers will be used at many of the world's largest 8 and 10m telescopes. They are sensitive to mid-infrared radiation from 8 to 25 microns that is emitted by the dust within several hundred astronomical units of the star. Key program goals are to critically constrain how coalescence and planet formation can proceed and to look for disk distortions and other signatures resulting from the influence of planets that have already formed.***