Dr. Janet Simpson

Astronomer Janet Simpson goes higher than the highest mountains to study the building blocks of stars. Using the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, Janet probes the foggy nurseries where stars are born. As galactic clouds of gas and dust collapse under their own weight, they form broad disks with stellar newborns growing in their centers. These disks are warm enough to emit copious amounts of infrared light – radiation that can only be seen by telescopes that fly high above Earth’s atmosphere. By examining the detailed appearance of these protostellar disks, Janet can learn much about star birth and its sometime accompaniment: the formation of planets.

Janet also uses these orbiting infrared instruments to study the makeup of hot gas clouds in the Milky Way, puzzling out their chemical composition. Her intention is to better understand when such elements as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen became widespread in the Galaxy. That can give us significant clues to how widespread life might be. Without these essential ingredients, rocky planets like Earth won’t form, nor will that dirty bit of chemistry we call life.

Projects

“The Interaction of Stars with the Interstellar medium: Infrared Studies with SOFIA”

NCC 2–1367

This project is a continuation of a collaboration with personnel at NASA/Ames Research Center, which involves research on a number of topics: (1) the formation and evolution of young stars, the interaction of the radiation and mass outflows from these stars with the surrounding interstellar medium, and the accretion disks and natal cocoons surrounding the newly formed stars, which might be the site of planet formation, (2) the centers of galaxies, both those actively forming stars and those whose extreme radiation fields prevent the local formation of the cold clouds out of which stars are formed, (3) the production and return of heavy elements to the interstellar medium in supernova explosions and mass loss from aged stars, and the results of such enrichment on the chemical evolution of the Galaxy, and (4) in order to further research on these topics, activities involved with the construction and use of a new telescope for airborne infrared astronomy: SOFIA—the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy.The Principal Investigator is an astronomer involved in research at both near-infrared and far-infrared wavelengths concerning the formation of young stars, the evolution of both old and young stars, which brings about the return of chemically enriched material to the interstellar medium, the interstellar medium in which these objects are embedded, and manifestations of both starbursts and active galactic nuclei in galaxies. While the end product of this study can and will be used in a wide variety of ways, we envision using this information to examine the processes of star formation, critical to understanding the likelihood of planet formation, and the evolution of the interstellar medium, including the formation of the complicated molecules that are essential to the formation of life.

"The Interactions of Stars with the Interstellar Medium of Galaxies"

NNA05CS33A

In collaboration with personnel at NASA Ames Research Center this project involves research on a number of topics: (1) the formation and evolution of young stars, the interaction of the radiation and mass outflows from these stars with the surrounding interstellar medium, and the accretion disks and natal cocoons surrounding the newly formed stars, which might be the site of planet formation, (2) the centers of galaxies, both those actively forming stars and those whose extreme radiation fields prevent the local formation of the cold clouds out of which stars are formed, and (3) the production and return of heavy elements to the interstellar medium in supernova explosions and mass loss from aged stars, and the results of such enrichment on the chemical evolution of galaxies.

The Principal Investigator, Dr. Simpson, is a Ph.D. astronomer involved in research at both near-infrared and far-infrared wavelengths concerning the formation of young stars, the evolution of both old and young stars, which brings about the return of chemically enriched material to the interstellar medium, the interstellar medium in which these objects are embedded, and manifestations of both starbursts and active galactic nuclei in galaxies. She will be assisted by Dr. Angela Cotera, also of SETI Institute, who is an expert on the massive stars and clusters of massive stars that are seen in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. While the end product of this study can and will be used in a wide variety of ways, SETI Institute envisions using this information to examine the processes of star formation, critical to understanding the likelihood of planet formation, and the evolution of the interstellar medium, including the formation of the complicated molecules that are essential to the formation of life.