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Project Reports

• Project 1. From Molecular Clouds to Habitable Planetary Systems

  Building on results described in last year’s report, Co-investigator John Chambers’s work this year has focused on models for the growth of planets in the presence of planetary migration. Inward migration of planetary orbits is widely believed to be an important process, but it is neglected in most studies of planet formation due to doubts about whether planets would survive.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 3.1 7.2

• Planetary Biology, Evolution, and Intelligence

  The results of a two and a half day workshop on the topic of the Habitability of Planets Orbiting M Stars was published recently. Thirty scientists from nineteen institutions in the US and UK participated. Thirteen of the participants were from six other NAI Teams

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2

• Climate, Habitability, and the Atmosphere on Early Mars

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 7.1

• Module 3: Nature of Planetary Systems

  Module 3: the Nature of Planetary Systems focuses on the direct detection and characterization of extrasolar planetary systems.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2

• Habitable Planets

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 4.1 4.3

• Investigations of the Birth of Stars and Planets

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2

• Extrasolar Planets

  D. Deming and his collaborators made new measurements of the temperature of the transiting extrasolar planet HD 209458b, using Spitzer observations of the planet’s secondary eclipse. The new observations indicate that the planet is somewhat hotter that the T ~ 1130° K temperature obtained from the initial Spitzer observations in 2005.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.2

• PSARC: Evolution of a Habitable Planet

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2

• Formation and Detection of Hot-Earth Objects in Systems With Close-In Jupiters

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2

• Origin and Evolution of Organics

  This research is part of the NASA Goddard Astrobiology Node. Our outgassing models predict the composition of first-formed atmospheres on the Earth and other rocky planets in our own and other solar systems formed from chondritic material. Chondritic material forms in any protoplanetary disk with solar or near-solar composition.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2

• Search for Planets Around Evolved Stars (Wolszczan)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.2