A groundbreaking collaboration between Michigan State University, Arizona State University, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is unlocking the secrets of planetary formation.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope and advanced computational models, the KRONOS program is analyzing the atmospheres of young exoplanets, some as ancient as the dinosaurs. By studying how starlight interacts with planetary atmospheres, scientists hope to piece together the origins of these distant worlds—and perhaps even discover conditions favorable for life.
Unraveling the Mystery of Planet Formation
Astronomers have long sought to answer a fundamental question, “How do planets form?” Now, a new collaboration between Michigan State University, Arizona State University, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory aims to shed light on this mystery using advanced telescopes and high-powered computing.
The research team has secured 154 hours on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study the atmospheres of seven exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system — that formed less than 300 million years ago, around the same time dinosaurs walked the Earth. Alongside JWST observations, the team, working under the KRONOS program, will leverage Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) supercomputers to develop detailed atmospheric models. These models could provide critical insights into how planets form, evolve, and whether they might support conditions favorable for life.
Peering Into the Atmospheres of Young Planets
“Understanding the compositions of planetary atmospheres at different ages is still a big unknown because these planets are hard to find and even harder to characterize,” said KRONOS program co-principal investigator Adina Feinstein, a NASA Sagan Fellow and incoming assistant professor at MSU. “With the precision and instruments aboard JWST, we’re excited to have the ability to begin to directly address questions of what natal planets look like.”
Three years into its operations, the JWST – a joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency – is already revolutionizing our understanding of planets beyond our solar system. Given the number of planets in our galaxy – 6,000 and counting – it’s clear that planet formation is pervasive. The details of how that happened, however, are still elusive. One way to find out is to observe planets of different ages, particularly young exoplanets less than 300 million years old, as they transit their host stars.
During this transit, some of the starlight passes through the planet’s atmosphere, and molecules such as water or carbon dioxide absorb some of the light. Scientists observe exoplanet transits at different wavelengths to probe how the light is absorbed to uncover the composition of an exoplanet atmosphere.
Computing the Secrets of Distant Worlds
By using physics-driven models of atmospheres, astronomers can explore an exoplanet’s composition, linking it to planetary formation and evolution theories. The problem is these models come at a huge computational cost. To combat this, the KRONOS team won 22 million hours of computing time through the LLNL Computing Grand Challenge Program. This program provides significant quantities of institutional computing resources to LLNL scientists to perform cutting-edge research.
The models KRONOS creates will be used to understand the compositions of a wide variety of exoplanet atmospheres. This in turn can be used to understand how planets are formed.
“We are taking some of the first steps to probe young exoplanet atmospheres – a largely unknown population. Through our strategic partnership, we will push the limits of our models and data, looking for new insights into both planetary atmospheres and their host stars,” said KRONOS co-principal investigator Luis Welbanks, a 51 Pegasi b Fellow and incoming assistant professor at Arizona State University. “Our results will reveal the physical and chemical processes shaping these distant worlds, guiding the future of both theoretical and observational research”
Expanding the Scope: From Seven to Seventy Planets
In addition to the seven planets being studied by KRONOS, the team will generate models for all 70 exoplanets that have been observed by JWST.
“An endeavor to uniformly model such a large sample of planets – from scorching worlds more massive than Jupiter, to temperate and small Earth-mass planets – has yet to be undertaken,” said LLNL principal investigator Peter McGill. “This task can really only be accomplished using LLNL’s world-class high performance computing platforms.”
Once completed, the atmospheric models developed by the team will be made publicly available to the astronomy community. The goal is to encourage open collaborative science and make a lasting impact on the field.
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.