Abstract Details

Name: Liton Majumdar
Affiliation: National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, India
Conference ID: ASI2021_404
Title : From Molecular Clouds to Planetary Systems: A new era of ALMA and JWST
Authors and Co-Authors : Liton Majumdar (National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 752050, India)
Abstract Type : Invited
Abstract Category : Plenary
Abstract : One of the most exciting developments in astronomy is the discovery of planets around stars other than our Sun. More than four thousand exo-planets have now been detected. But how do these planets form, and why are they so different from those in our own solar system? Which ingredients are available to build them? Thanks to powerful ground-based telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and soon the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we are now in a position to address these age-old questions scientifically. The formation of stars and planetary systems takes place in "molecular clouds". These dense (~100,000 H2 molecules per cc), cold (~10 K), dust enshrouded regions of the interstellar medium exhibit a high degree of molecular complexity. I will discuss how this complexity develops in molecular clouds, and how far it progresses before the molecules are incorporated as ices into planetesimals in protoplanetary disks and delivered to planets in the habitable zone. I present recent spectroscopic observations carried out using IRAM-30m telescope, NOEMA, and ALMA interferometers. I also discuss prospects for continuing such studies using JWST.