Planetary systems and star formation in the Astro2010 survey

Details Planetary systems and star formation in the Astro2010 survey Planetary systems and star formation in the Astro2010 survey

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21810405w&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #104.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The panel on Planetary Systems and Star Formation was tasked with identifying the major frontiers of Galactic astronomy for the next decade, in the wake of the exponential growth of exoplanet discovery, the results of missions such as Spitzer, Herschel and Kepler, and the promise of improvements in angular resolution, image contrast and sensitivity in space and in ground-based observations. From our study emerged four questions on which major further progress seems likely, and one area in which the potential for discovery seems especially high:
(1) How do stars form? In particular, what determines the rate and efficiencies of star formation, and the stellar and prestellar-core mass functions?
(2) How do circumstellar disks evolve and form planetary systems? In particular, how do giant planets accrete from disks, what are infant giant planets and their formation environment like, and what constraints on the planet-forming process emerge from the observed structure of debris disks?
(3) How diverse are planetary systems? What may be revealed by a complete census of architecture, and planetary bulk and atmospheric composition?
(4) Do habitable words exist in orbit around other stars? What characteristics define habitability, and how can we measure these characteristics?
(+1) Is there a fast track for identification of a nearby habitable exoplanet? How can we exploit the relative ease with which planets can be detected around lower-mass stars, and the large numbers of M stars in our neighborhood?

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