Center
for Astrophysics and Planetary
Science - CAPS
CAPS
is located in the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Kent at Canterbury. The
group's present research spans a range of themes including
Solar System and Space Science, the Interstellar Medium, Star Formation and Planetary Nebulae. The
activities include infrared astronomy, astrobiology, astrochemistry, astrofluids and numerical astrophysics.
The
group is led by Professor Michael Smith, whose research is aimed
at understanding the very origins of stars and planets.
Dr. Mark Burchell studies impact cratering processes, Solar System ices
and astrobiology. Dr. Jingqi Miao develops sophisticated
computational and theoretical models of star forming regions, studying
their gravitational collapse and intricate properties. Dr. Dirk Froebrich
is an authority on protostars, interstellar extinction and globular clusters. This research is described
in more detail below. Click on the images to be taken to the project
pages.
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Michael Smith's research is aimed at understanding the origins of
stars and planets. With the development of infrared and millimetre
astronomy, we are now able to penetrate and survey the regions where they
are born. Smith investigates the violent nature of star formation and the
spectacular manifestations that result. It is evident, however, that star
formation presents us with the ultimate of Complex Systems. His goal is to
face the fundamental issues and unravel a model to unify the conception,
birth and early evolution of stars. He focuses on the 'multi-physics,
multi-scale' problem: physics, chemistry and dynamics on equal terms,
operating and interacting over wide ranges of scale. With the acceptance
that regions of star formation evolve rapidly and that the features are
transient, the properties of supersonic turbulence become crucial. He
explores the nature of flows in the initial collapse, in the
planet-forming disks and in the jets and shocks in the subsequent
outflows. His research methods combine a program of infrared observations
with analysis, interpretation and supercomputer simulations.
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Burchell's Impact laboratory
contains a Light Gas Gun (LGG)
that is able to accelerate particles to velocities of up to 7 kilometers
per second. The LGG is used to investigate hypervelocity impact
cratering in metals, rocks and ices, and to explore the capture
of particles in aerogel. The impact
work is being extended to physical examples [non-water and low
temp ices], and in the area of astrobiology,
to test survivability of bacteria in hypervelocity impacts [necessary
for natural distribution of life through space - sometimes known
as Panspermia], and to identify minerals captured in aerogel for
future sample return missions from space. |
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Dirk Froebrich's
research is focused on the earliest stages of star and star cluster
formation. He focuses on the detailed statistical comparison of model
predictions with observational data in order to find out how well current
models are able to explain the observational evidence.
Extensive
studies have been done to build up the largest known sample of very young protostars and to
compare their fundamental properties (temperature, mass, luminosity) to
current models of star formation. Currently he collaborates with the JETSET consortium in an extensive
observational work to determine the properties of jets and outflows of the
entire source sample. These properties are essential to understand the
feedback of forming stars on their environment.
The investigation of the distribution of gas and dust clouds and their
properties is a vital ingredient to understand the formation of stars. Large scale extinction
mapping is hence undertaken to determine the distribution of dust clouds
in the entire Galactic Plane. Such projects become increasingly achievable
due to the availability of all sky near infrared surveys, large computer
clusters and Grid technology.
A spin-off project of this work allowed us to search for known and new unknown star
clusters in the entire Galactic Plane. Such searches are vital to
understand the formation and evolution of stellar clusters. Our search lead
to the discovery of about 500, so far unknown star clusters in our Galaxy.
We are now in the process to classify these objects. Several of these could
be identified as new
globular clusters in the Galaxy.
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Jingqi Miao
leads a project to develop numerical
simulations of collapsing interstellar
clouds, collaborating with scientists in Sweden, Holland, the
US and Japan. She has developed Monte Carlo modelling techniques
to study the impact rates of dust particles on the surfaces of spacecraft
in Earth orbit, and is now developing a time-dependant chemical
model to study the effects of the external
radiation field and self-gravitational collapse in Cometary
Globules and bright rim nebulae. This model, which includes full
3D time evolving collapse dynamics, will be used to study the role
of shock induction on the collapse of globules and molecular cores,
and to exploit recent high-resolution optical echelle, SCUBA and
molecular line data. |
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