The pathway to planets: formation of protoplanetary discs. This project aims to expand our knowledge of how planetary systems are born. Observations are bringing new insight into the structure of discs of dusty gas orbiting young stars, but not in sufficient detail to understand how planets form within them. This project aims to link the structure of discs to the well-characterised interstellar cloud cores that collapse to form star-disc systems. The project aspires to use innovative techniques ....The pathway to planets: formation of protoplanetary discs. This project aims to expand our knowledge of how planetary systems are born. Observations are bringing new insight into the structure of discs of dusty gas orbiting young stars, but not in sufficient detail to understand how planets form within them. This project aims to link the structure of discs to the well-characterised interstellar cloud cores that collapse to form star-disc systems. The project aspires to use innovative techniques to enable the rapid collapse calculations needed to map core properties to disc structure. Expected outcomes include knowledge of the disc structures critical to interpreting observations of forming planetary systems. The benefit will be guidance to the theory needed to explain the incredible variety of planetary systems we see today.Read moreRead less
Understanding other worlds: the composition, structure and evolution of exoplanet atmospheres. This project will advance our understanding of the rapidly growing number of planets being found around other stars. The project will develop new techniques to determine what their atmospheres are made of, how the planets form and evolve, and whether they have the potential to host life.
Wobbling stars reveal their hidden companions. This project aims to measure the wobble in the position of distant stars that is caused by massive objects, using telescopes in space. This project expects to generate new knowledge on how binary stars, exoplanets, and stellar mass black holes are formed. Expected outcomes of this project include tight constraints on binary star models, new discoveries of neutron stars and black holes that are a few times more massive than the Sun, and samples of st ....Wobbling stars reveal their hidden companions. This project aims to measure the wobble in the position of distant stars that is caused by massive objects, using telescopes in space. This project expects to generate new knowledge on how binary stars, exoplanets, and stellar mass black holes are formed. Expected outcomes of this project include tight constraints on binary star models, new discoveries of neutron stars and black holes that are a few times more massive than the Sun, and samples of stars that do, and do not, host exoplanets. This should provide significant benefits including a catalogue of companion properties for billions of sources, new understanding of how stars die, as well as the first control sample of stars without planets to help understand how and why planets form.Read moreRead less
The Gaia/Kepler revolution for asteroseismology and exoplanets. This project aims to combine the first results from the Gaia mission with Kepler data to improve understanding of stars and planets. The study of the structure and evolution of stars and planets in our galaxy is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. While the NASA Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets and oscillating stars, poor knowledge of their distances has been a limitation in exploiting the data. ....The Gaia/Kepler revolution for asteroseismology and exoplanets. This project aims to combine the first results from the Gaia mission with Kepler data to improve understanding of stars and planets. The study of the structure and evolution of stars and planets in our galaxy is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. While the NASA Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets and oscillating stars, poor knowledge of their distances has been a limitation in exploiting the data. The project is expected to yield an empirical calibration of asteroseismology, and lead to breakthrough discoveries in understanding masses and interior rotation in intermediate mass stars to accurately estimate the frequency of Earth-like planets in our galaxy.Read moreRead less
Do Earth-like planets orbit Alpha Centauri? This project will be an intensive search for Earth-like planets orbiting the two nearest Sun-like stars, Alpha Centauri A and B. Our results will give a valuable first look at the abundance of Earth-like planets in the solar neighbourhood.
Modelling star formation and feedback in the interstellar medium. Star formation is such a highly complex process in which turbulence, gravity, chemical evolution, magnetic fields and stellar feedback are coupled together that numerical models are needed to study star formation in detail. This project aims to combine them in a self-consistent model, enabling the most detailed comparison with observations possible to date.