| Abstract: | The past two decades have been transformative for our understanding of star and planet formation, driven by the unprecedented capabilities of infrared space observatories. This talk highlights key insights from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Herschel Space Observatory, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which together have reshaped our view of how stars and planets form in the cosmos.
Spitzer provided the first comprehensive mid-infrared census of protostars, enabling detailed characterization of protostellar evolution and addressing the long-standing “protostellar luminosity problem.” Its groundbreaking discovery of transitional disks, along with detailed studies of the disk chemical composition, structure, and evolution, established a foundation for understanding planet formation.
Herschel extended this understanding into the far-infrared, probing the cold dust and gas in star-forming regions, unveiling the most embedded, reddest and youngest protostars. It provided well characterised spectral energy distributions even for the deeply embedded protostars, enabling us to study the earliest stages of star formation, providing detailed views of protostellar environments and revealing the interaction between energetic outflows and the protostellar envelopes, thus allowing us to study mechanical and radiative feedback.
JWST is now revolutionizing the field with its unparalleled spatial and spectral resolution. JWST’s ability to observe protostellar jets and winds in unprecedented detail has provided new insights into their launching, propogation and feedback mechanisms, leading to a new paradigm in which disk winds drive accretion thereby making star formation possible. Additionally, JWST’s rich spectra of protoplanetary disks are revealing the chemistry of planet-forming regions, offering crucial insights into the building blocks of planetary systems.
This talk will synthesize these transformative discoveries, demonstrating how Spitzer, Herschel, and JWST have collectively advanced our understanding of the formation and evolution of stars and planetary systems, setting the stage for future explorations in the field. |
