Unlocking the organic chemistry of planet formation

像我们这样的行星系统，是由年轻恒星周围的原行星盘中的尘埃、气体和冰组成的。研究这些圆盘使我们对形成行星的原材料有了独特的见解，并可以回答有关我们在宇宙中的位置的基本问题。我们的太阳系很罕见吗？行星通常是什么类型的？行星在哪里以及如何继承它们的组成？虽然最近在研究原行星盘方面取得了很大进展，例如阿塔卡马大型毫米/亚毫米阵列（阿尔马），但这只能告诉我们关于木星或土星等巨型行星可能形成的原行星盘的外部区域。我们对i）内部原行星盘的组成知之甚少，这是类地（或类地）行星形成的地方，ii）盘中平面，行星形成过程的开始。詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜（JWST）和平方公里阵列（SKA）很快将提供一个独特的窗口，观察原行星盘。JWST将打开光盘的最里面的区域，SKA将窥视它们在中平面中最密集的区域。在这个项目中，我将结合这些设施的尖端观测，沿着计算机模型的预测，第一次全面了解原行星盘的组成。我的研究结果将为行星形成的原材料的化学成分提供新的线索，并确定这种材料与我们自己的太阳系有多相似。

Planetary systems, such as our own, are assembled from dust, gas, and ice contained in protoplanetary discs around young stars. Studying these discs gives us unique insights into the raw material that goes on to form planets, and can answer fundamental questions about our place in the Universe. Is our Solar System rare? What types of planets are commonly formed? Where and how do planets inherit their composition?While much progress has recently been made on studying protoplanetary discs with observatories such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), this is only able to tell us about the outer regions of protoplanetary discs where giant planets like Jupiter or Saturn might form. We know very little about the composition of i) the inner protoplanetary disc, where Earth-like (or terrestrial) planets are expected to form, and ii) the disc midplane, where the planet formation process starts.The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will soon provide a unique window on protoplanetary discs. JWST will open up the innermost regions of discs, and SKA will peer into their most dense regions in the midplane. In this Fellowship, I will use a combination cutting-edge observations from these facilities, along with predictions from computer models, to understand the composition of protoplanetary discs across their full extent for the first time. My results will shed new light on the chemical composition of the raw material available for planet formation, and determine how similar this material is to our own Solar System.