Discovering and Characterizing Protoplanetary Systems Using Novel Imaging Techniques

Stephanie Sallum被授予NSF天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，在圣克鲁斯的加州大学进行研究和教育计划。 Sallum将开发方法来拍摄附近恒星周围尘埃盘的最清晰图像。 由于这些盘是行星的潜在诞生地，这些图像将使天文学家能够了解行星如何在恒星周围形成。 除了这项研究，萨勒姆还将为囚犯教育开发一门天文学课程。要了解行星是如何形成的，就需要直接观察吸积的原行星。 通过开发和改进新的成像方法，可以在望远镜的理论分辨率极限下探测同伴，Sallum将推进高对比度成像技术来研究原行星盘。 然后，她将把这些技术应用于对包含内部空地的原行星盘的地面观测，这些空地可能表明吸积行星的存在。 Sallum还将为未来的行星搜索做准备，詹姆斯韦伯太空望远镜可以探测到恒星周围的近距离行星同伴，这些恒星的数量级比地面望远镜观测到的要暗。 对于她的工作的教育组成部分，萨勒姆将创建和教一个天文学课程在加州大学圣克鲁斯计划的囚犯教育。

Stephanie Sallum is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct a program of research and education at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sallum will develop methods to take the sharpest possible images of dusty disks around nearby stars. Because these disks are potential birthplaces of planets, the images will allow astronomers to understand how planets form around stars. Alongside this research, Sallum will develop an astronomy course for inmate education.Understanding how planets form requires direct observations of accreting protoplanets. By developing and refining new imaging methods that can detect companions at a telescope's theoretical resolution limit, Sallum will advance high contrast imaging techniques to study protoplanetary disks. She will then apply these techniques to ground-based observations of protoplanetary disks containing inner clearings that might indicate the presence of accreting planets. Sallum will also prepare for future planet searches with the James Webb Space Telescope, which can detect close-in planetary companions around stars that are orders of magnitude fainter than those observable from ground-based telescopes. For the educational component of her work, Sallum will create and teach an astronomy course at the UC Santa Cruz Program for Inmate Education.