The Planet Formation Lab

The Planet Formation Lab is a group in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT studying the formation of planetary systems. Focus is on understanding the physical processes which form planets, the chemical complexity of the materials from which they form, and a characterization of their birth environment. This is approached from both observational and theoretical standpoints, using a wide range of ground- and space-based observatories, as well as state-of-the-art numerical simluations.

 When, where and how do planetary systems form? These are the sort of questions the Planet Formation Lab aims to answers. To tackle these quetsions we use a combination of ground and space-based observatories and state-of-the-art numerical simulations. By combining multi-wavelength observations with cutting-edge theoretical models, we are able to start piecing together the planet formation process and understand the origins of our own Solar System.

Planets, both those within our Solar System and beyond, form in protoplanetary disks, residual material from the star formation phase which settles around a newly formed star. As such, a vast majority of our work utilizes sub-mm interferometric observations from ALMA to trace the gas and dust present in these disks, allowing us to characterize the physical and chemical conditions in which planetary systems form, yielding critical insights to the beginnings of planetary systems. Such observations can be confronted with theoretical models of the (magneto-)hydrodynamical and chemical evolution of the gas to understand the relative importance of competing processes.

In addition to studying the formation environment, we search for evidence of planets which have only recently been formed. These planets are still embedded in their natal protoplanetary disk, making their detection extremely challenging. Observatories such as JWST, or ground-based counterparts like the VLT or Magellan telescopes, provide the best opportunities to detect emission from these elusive planets, and are routinely used by The Planet Formation Lab for this purpose. The exoALMA project, led by Prof. Teague, provides an alternative approach and aims to detect embedded planets through their influence on their parental protoplanetary disk.