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The chemical composition of protoplanetary disks is expected to hold clues to the physical and chemical processes that influence the formation of planetary systems. However, characterizing the gas composition in the planet formation region of disks has been a challenge to date. We report here that the protoplanetary disk within 3 astronomical units of AA Tauri possesses a rich molecular emission spectrum in the mid-infrared, indicating a high abundance of simple organic molecules (HCN, C₂H₂, and CO₂), water vapor, and OH. These results suggest that water is abundant throughout the inner disk and that the disk supports an active organic chemistry.

Understanding the formation of our planetary system requires identification of the materials from which it originated and the accretion processes that produced the planets. The compositional evolution of the solar system can be constrained by synthesizing astronomical datasets and numerical models with elemental and isotopic compositions from objects that directly sampled the disk: meteorites and their constituents (chondrules, refractory inclusions, and matrix). This contribution reviews constraints on early solar system evolution provided by the so-called non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous chondrite (CC) groups and their relationship to the volatile element characteristics of chondritic meteorites. In previous work, the NC or CC character of a parent body was used to infer its accretion location in the protoplanetary disk. The NC groups purportedly originated in the inner disk, and the CC groups were derived from the outer disk, where the NC and CC regions of the disk may have been separated early on by proto-Jupiter, a pressure maximum, or a dust trap in the disk. The tenet that all CC parent bodies accreted in the outer disk is, in part, based on evidence that a handful of CC meteorites are enriched in volatile species compared to NC meteorites. Here, it is reviewed if and how the volatile element and nucleosynthetic isotope compositions of meteorites can be linked to accretion locations within the disk. The nucleosynthetic isotope compositions of whole rock meteorite samples contrast the trends found for their major volatile element compositions (i.e., C, N, and O). Although there may be an increase in volatile abundances when comparing some stony NC and CC meteorites and their inferred accretion locations within the disk, this is not necessarily a general rule. The difficulties with inferring parent body accretion locations are discussed. It is found that it cannot always be assumed that parent bodies which formed in the CC reservoir are “volatile-rich” relative to those that formed in the NC reservoir which are “volatile-poor”. Consequently, tracing the origin of terrestrial volatiles using the NC-CC isotope dichotomy remains challenging.

Icy bodies may have delivered the oceans to the early Earth, yet little is known about water in the ice-dominated regions of extrasolar planet-forming disks. The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared on board the Herschel Space Observatory has detected emission lines from both spin isomers of cold water vapor from the disk around the young star TW Hydrae. This water vapor likely originates from ice-coated solids near the disk surface, hinting at a water ice reservoir equivalent to several thousand Earth oceans in mass. The water's ortho-to-para ratio falls well below that of solar system comets, suggesting that comets contain heterogeneous ice mixtures collected across the entire solar nebula during the early stages of planetary birth.

HD 141569 is a Herbig Ae/Be star that straddles the boundary between the transition disks and debris disks. It is a low dust mass disk that reveals numerous structural elements (e.g., gaps and rings) that may point to young planets. It also exhibits a reservoir of CO gas observed at both millimeter and IR wavelengths. Previous observations reported a possible asymmetry in the CO gas emission. Herein the IR rovibrational emission lines are analyzed and modeled both spectroscopically and spectroastrometrically. We find emission features from both 12CO and 13CO isotopologues heated to a temperature of approximately 200 K in the radial extent of 13–60 au. We do not see evidence of the previously reported asymmetry in CO emission, our results being consistent with a Keplerian, axisymmetric emitting region. This raises the question of whether the emission profile may be evolving in time, possibly as a result of an orbiting feature in the inner disk such as a planet.

The Orbiting Astronomical Satellite for Investigating Stellar Systems (OASIS) is a NASA Astrophysics MIDEX-class mission concept, with the stated goal of Following water from galaxies, through protostellar systems, to Earth’s oceans. This paper details the protoplanetary disk science achievable with OASIS. OASIS’s suite of heterodyne receivers allow for simultaneous, high spectral resolution observations of water emission lines The Orbiting Astronomical Satellite for Investigating Stellar Systems (OASIS) is a NASA Astrophysics MIDEX-class mission concept, with the stated goal of Following water from galaxies, through protostellar systems, to Earth’s oceans. This paper details the protoplanetary disk science achievable with OASIS. OASIS’s suite of heterodyne receivers allow for simultaneous, high spectral resolution observations of water emission lines HD in 100+ disks, allowing for the most accurate determination of total protoplanetary disk gas mass to date. When combined with the contemporaneous water observations, the HD detection will also allow us to trace the evolution of water vapor across evolutionary stages. These observations will enable OASIS to characterize the time development of the water distribution and the role water plays in the process of planetary system formation.

Some planetary systems harbour debris disks containing planetesimals such as asteroids and comets. Collisions between such bodies produce small dust particles, the spectral features of which reveal their composition and, hence, that of their parent bodies. A measurement of the composition of olivine crystals (Mg2−2xFe2xSiO4) has been done for the protoplanetary disk HD 100546 and for olivine crystals in the warm inner parts of planetary systems. The latter compares well with the iron-rich olivine in asteroids (x ≈ 0.29). In the cold outskirts of the β Pictoris system, an analogue to the young Solar System, olivine crystals were detected but their composition remained undetermined, leaving unknown how the composition of the bulk of Solar System cometary olivine grains compares with that of extrasolar comets. Here we report the detection of the 69-micrometre-wavelength band of olivine crystals in the spectrum of β Pictoris. Because the disk is optically thin, we can associate the crystals with an extrasolar proto-Kuiper belt a distance of 15–45 astronomical units from the star (one astronomical unit is the Sun–Earth distance), determine their magnesium-rich composition (x = 0.01 ± 0.001) and show that they make up 3.6 ± 1.0 per cent of the total dust mass. These values are strikingly similar to those for the dust emitted by the most primitive comets in the Solar System, even though β Pictoris is more massive and more luminous and has a different planetary system architecture.

When a star is born, a protoplanetary disk made of gas and dust surrounds the star. The disk can show gaps opened by different astrophysical mechanisms. The gap has a wall emitting radiation, which contributes to the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the whole system (star, disk and planet) in the IR band. As these newborn stars are far away from us, it is difficult to know whether the gap is opened by a forming planet. I have developed RHADaMAnTe, a computational astro code based on the geometry of the wall of a gap coming from hydrodynamics 3D simulations of protoplanetary disks. With this code, it is possible to make models of disks to estimate the synthetic SEDs of the wall and prove whether the gap was opened by a forming planet. An implementation of this code was used to study the stellar system LkCa 15. It was found that a planet of 10 Jupiter masses is capable of opening a gap with a curved wall with a height of 12.9 AU. However, the synthetic SED does not fit to Spitzer IRS SED (χ2∼4.5) from 5μm to 35μm. This implies that there is an optically thin region inside the gap.

We present the discovery of a circumstellar dust disk surrounding AU Microscopii (AU Mic, GJ 803, HD 197481). This young M star at 10 parsec has the same age and origin as β Pictoris, another nearby star surrounded by a dust disk. The AU Mic disk is detected between 50 astronomical units (AU) and 210 AU radius, a region where dust lifetimes exceed the present stellar age. Thus, AU Mic is the nearest star where we directly observe the solid material required for planet formation. Because 85% of stars are M-type, the AU Mic disk provides new clues on how the majority of planetary systems might form and evolve.

Fomalhaut proceedings In 1983 the IRAS orbiting satellite detected excess infrared radiation from the direction of Fomalhaut, a first magnitude star in the otherwise dim constellation Piscis Austrinus. It was radiation from a huge dusty disk around the star, about four times the size of our Solar System. The Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the Hubble Space Telescope has now detected Fomalhaut's dust complex at high resolution at optical wavelengths. The disk is offset from the star in a way that suggests the presence of several planets. The debris disks around Beta Pictoris and AU Microscopii are both edge-on, and the disk around HR 4796A has a small radius. So the Fomalhaut disk, seen on a slope rather like the ring around Saturn, older than the others and closer to us, may become the disk of choice for the study of planet formation. The Sun and >15 per cent of nearby stars are surrounded by dusty disks that must be collisionally replenished by asteroids and comets, as the dust would otherwise be depleted on timescales <10 7  years (ref. 1 ). Theoretical studies show that the structure of a dusty disk can be modified by the gravitational influence of planets 2 , 3 , 4 , but the observational evidence is incomplete, at least in part because maps of the thermal infrared emission from the disks have low linear resolution (35  au in the best case 5 ). Optical images provide higher resolution, but the closest examples (AU Mic and β Pic) are edge-on 6 , 7 , preventing the direct measurement of the azimuthal and radial disk structure that is required for fitting theoretical models of planetary perturbations. Here we report the detection of optical light reflected from the dust grains orbiting Fomalhaut (HD 216956). The system is inclined 24° away from edge-on, enabling the measurement of disk structure around its entire circumference, at a linear resolution of 0.5  au . The dust is distributed in a belt 25  au wide, with a very sharp inner edge at a radial distance of 133  au , and we measure an offset of 15  au between the belt's geometric centre and Fomalhaut. Taken together, the sharp inner edge and offset demonstrate the presence of planetary-mass objects orbiting Fomalhaut.

The destiny of planetary systems through the late evolution of their host stars is very uncertain. We report a metal-rich gas disk around a moderately hot and young white dwarf. A dynamical model of the double-peaked emission lines constrains the outer disk radius to just 1.2 solar radii. The likely origin of the disk is a tidally disrupted asteroid, which has been destabilized from its initial orbit at a distance of more than 1000 solar radii by the interaction with a relatively massive planetesimal object or a planet. The white dwarf mass of 0.77 solar mass implies that planetary systems may form around high-mass stars.