Drs. Edwin Bergin and Nuria Calvert (University of Michigan) will undertake a comprehensive observational and theoretical approach to unlock some significant uncertainties that remain in our understanding of the formation of stars, planets, and the origin of water-bearing worlds. The program of research will provide observational comment on current controversies regarding the formation of massive stars and examine whether star formation is similar between the local solar neighborhood and in the 5 kiloparsec Molecular Ring where the majority of stars are born. They will use a newly identified H2 emission feature to directly detect gas within an orbital radius of 5-10 Astronomical Units around young stars. These observations will be ~100 times more sensitive with ~50 times more angular resolution than previous efforts in this area. As part of this program, they will characterize and show the tremendous promise of using molecular emission to detect the observational signatures of forming giant protoplanets. This will sow the seeds for a long-term observational program to use the Atacama Large Millimeter Array for planet detection. They will also use new facilities to search for H2O emission in protoplanetary disks. With the combination of new data and chemical theory they will constrain the water cycle from the beginnings of stellar birth to planet formation.
This research program encompasses several disparate fields including: astronomy, chemistry, physics, (astro)biology, and education. As such it has clear cross-discipline and broad impact. This project also contains training for the next generation of scientists to be capable of taking advantage of future facilities that represent a key national investment in astronomical science, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, Herschel, The Stratosphereic Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the planned ground-based large optical/infrared telescope.
