TOWARDS NEW FRONTIERS: THE ASTROCHEMICAL JOURNEY FROM YOUNG STELLAR NURSERIES TO EXOPLANETS
10 - 14 MARCH 2025
GARCHING NEAR MUNICH, GERMANY
Rationale
Characterising the chemical composition of young prestellar and protostellar systems and understanding their evolution is crucial to retrieve the chemical content that forming planets will inherit. In recent years, our community has taken major steps forward to understand the content of protostellar regions and their evolution. Large observational campaigns at millimeter wavelengths with facilities, such as IRAM 30m, ALMA, NOEMA, in the radio regime with GBT and VLA, as well as new results from JWST in the mid-IR provided us a wealth of information, as well as new open questions. Two of the main open questions are: i) how much of the molecular content in pre-stellar and protostellar systems is reprocessed or maintained in the subsequent stages? ii) How does the chemical characterisation of exoplanets reflect the chemical content in the early stages of their formation?
This workshop aims to convene observers working on various stages of star/planet formation to investigate these pressing questions. We seek to comprehend the current state-of-the-art in chemical evolution and forge new connections within the star formation and the exoplanet communities. We aim to delineate current observational limitations and offer valuable insights to the community on the future ESO facilities and upgrades, such as ALMA Wide Sensitivity upgrade (WSU) and ELT, and new and future instruments such as ngVLA, SKA and JWST. With a multi-wavelength approach, going from infrared to centimeter, this workshop offers a distinctive and unique perspective that sets it apart from previous and forthcoming events in our field.
Our program
The workshop will be held at the ESO headquarters in Garching near Munich. It will start on Monday (10th March) afternoon and will end on Friday (14th March) noon, with the social event on Wednesday (12th March) afternoon. There will be three main blocks: the chemistry of the i) prestellar stage, ii) protostellar phase, and iii) more evolved stages (disks, solar system objects and exoplanets). Additionally, there will be invited reviews on the state of the art of the new coming facilities (from centimeter to infrared) and their potential in the field. Finally, there will be ample space for discussion to understand how these scientific topics will develop in the coming decades.
E-mail: newfrontiers_web@eso.org