Astro2010 Panel on Planetary Systems and Star Formation (PSF)

Summary

The panel will identify and articulate the scientific themes that will define the frontier in PSF research in the 2010-2020 decade. The panel will consider science opportunities and themes surrounding planetary systems and star formation, including solar system bodies (other than the Sun) and extrasolar planets, debris disks, exobiology, the formation of individual stars, protostellar and protoplanetary disks, molecular clouds and the cold ISM, dust, and astrochemistry. Its assessment will play a key role in the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 (Astro2010) study, which will survey the field of space- and ground-based astronomy and astrophysics, recommending priorities for the most important scientific and technical activities of the decade 2010-2020. The PSF Panel will prepare a report that will identify the scientific drivers of the field and the most promising opportunities for progress in research in the next decade, taking into consideration those areas where the technical means and the theoretical foundations are in place for major steps forward.

Project Information

• Statement of Task
• Committee Members and NRC Staff
• Past Events
• Community Input
• Sponsor
• Astro2010 Survey Committee
• The National Academies' Current Projects System

Statement of Task

The Planetary Systems and Star Formation (PSF) Panel will identify and articulate the scientific themes that will define the frontier in PSF research in the 2010-2020 decade. This panel will consider science opportunities and themes surrounding planetary systems and star formation, including solar system bodies (other than the Sun) and extrasolar planets, debris disks, exobiology, the formation of individual stars, protostellar and protoplanetary disks, molecular clouds and the cold ISM, dust, and astrochemistry. Its assessment will play a key role in the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 (Astro2010) study, which will survey the field of space- and ground-based astronomy and astrophysics, recommending priorities for the most important scientific and technical activities of the decade 2010-2020. The PSF Panel will prepare a report that will identify the scientific drivers of the field and the most promising opportunities for progress in research in the next decade, taking into consideration those areas where the technical means and the theoretical foundations are in place for major steps forward.

More broadly, this panel will be charged (as will each of the five science panels) with the following tasks:

1. Identify new scientific opportunities and compelling scientific themes that have arisen from recent advances and accomplishments in astronomy and astrophysics;

2. Describe the scientific context of the importance of these opportunities, including connections to other parts of astronomy and astrophysics and, where appropriate, to the advancement of our broader scientific understanding;

3. Describe the key advances in observation and theory necessary to realize the scientific opportunities within the decade 2010-2020; and

4. Considering the relative compelling nature of the opportunities identified and the expected accessibility of the measurement regimes required, call out up to four central questions that are ripe for answering and one general area where there is unusual discovery potential and that define the scientific frontier of the next decade in the SFP's sub-field of astronomy and astrophysics.

In completing this task, each Science Frontier Panel will provide the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 Committee's Subcommittee on Science with its inputs in the Spring of 2009 and complete its panel report thereafter. The panel reports will be published following the release of the main survey committee's report in 2010. The Subcommittee on Science will issue a request for community input to ensure broad community participation in the process of identifying the scientific frontiers.

Committee Members and NRC Staff

Lee Hartmann, Chair, University of Michigan
Dan M. Watson, Vice-chair, University of Rochester
Hector Arce, Yale University
Claire Chandler, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
David Charbonneau, Harvard University
Eugene Chiang, University of California at Berkeley
Suzan Edwards, Smith College
Eric Herbst, The Ohio State University
David C. Jewitt, University of Hawaii
James P. Lloyd, Cornell University
Eve C. Ostriker, University of Maryland
David Stevenson, California Institute of Technology
Jonathan Tan, University of Florida

NRC Staff

Don Shapero, Director BPA
Michael Moloney, Astro2010 Study Director
Brant Sponberg, Associate Director SSB
LaVita Coates-Fogle, Senior Program Assistant, BPA

Past Events

Meeting 1: March 12-13, 2009, Washington, D.C. Agenda
Meeting 2: April 9-10, 2009, Irvine, CA
Meeting 3: July 16-17, 2009, Washington, DC

Sponsor

The committee is pleased to acknowledge support from the NASA, the NSF, and the DOE.

The National Academies' Current Projects System

The National Academies' Current Projects System maintains the public record of a committees' activities compliant to Section 15 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.  Visit the Astro2010 Panel on Planetary Systems and Star Formation Current Projects page for more information.