Prof. Richard Teague

When, where and how do planetary systems form? These are the questions Professor Teague's research aims to answer. He is interested in understanding both the chemical makeup of the material that forms planets, and the physical processes which brings that material together in protoplanetary disks, the birthplace of planets. For this, Teague uses the biggest telescopes in the world (and in space!) to observe regions in space where planets are forming, and compare this to large-scale, state-of-the-art numerical simulations of the planet formation process.

Professor Teague tackles these questions primarily with submillimeter (sub-mm) interferometric observations of the gas and dust in protoplanetary disks to map the temperatures, densities, and chemical complexities of the planet-forming material. He is currently leading the exoALMA collaboration, an ambitious Atacama Large (sub)Millimeter Array (ALMA) Large Program that is conducting the first sub-mm planet hunting campaign, uniquely designed to detect the youngest exoplanets. The unparalleled spatial resolution afforded by ALMA has enabled us to view the 6D structure (three spatial dimensions and three velocity dimensions) of protoplanetary and circumplanetary disks.