The trail of water and the delivery of volatiles to habitable planets

Klaus Pontoppidan , Andrea Banzatti , Edwin Bergin (1) , Geoffrey A. Blake (2) , Sean Brittain (3) , Maryvonne Gerin (4) , Paul F. Goldsmith (5) , Quentin Kral (6) , David Leisawitz , Dariusz Lis (4) , Melissa Mcclure , Stefanie Milam , Gary Melnick , Joan Najita , Karin Danielsson Öberg (7) , Matt Richter , Colette Salyk (8) , Martina Wiedner (4) , Ke Zhang (9)

1 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
2 Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
3 Clemson University
4 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
5 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
6 LESIA (UMR_8109) - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
7 Umeå University, Sweden
8 NOAO - National Optical Astronomy Observatory
9 NPU - Northwestern Polytechnical University

Water is fundamental to our understanding of the formation of planets and the delivery of volatiles to their surfaces. Yet, we currently have no facilities capable of comprehensively observing it. A cold, space-based observatory operating at 25-600 micron is needed to address fundamental questions about the origin of planets and their water.

Domaines: Astrophysique galactique [astro-ph.GA]

Klaus Pontoppidan, Andrea Banzatti, Edwin Bergin, Geoffrey A. Blake, Sean Brittain, et al.. The trail of water and the delivery of volatiles to habitable planets. 2019. ⟨hal-02389406⟩