The building blocks of planets within the 'terrestrial' region of protoplanetary disks.

Our Solar System was formed from a cloud of gas and dust. Most of the dust mass is contained in amorphous silicates, yet crystalline silicates are abundant throughout the Solar System, reflecting the thermal and chemical alteration of solids during planet formation. (Even primitive bodies such as comets contain crystalline silicates.) Little is known about the evolution of the dust that forms Earth-like planets. Here we report spatially resolved detections and compositional analyses of these building blocks in the innermost two astronomical units of three proto-planetary disks. We find the dust in these regions to be highly crystallized, more so than any other dust observed in young stars until now. In addition, the outer region of one star has equal amounts of pyroxene and olivine, whereas the inner regions are dominated by olivine. The spectral shape of the inner-disk spectra shows surprising similarity with Solar System comets. Radial-mixing models naturally explain this resemblance as well as the gradient in chemical composition. Our observations imply that silicates crystallize before any terrestrial planets are formed, consistent with the composition of meteorites in the Solar System.

The central dusty torus in the active nucleus of NGC 1068.

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) display many energetic phenomena--broad emission lines, X-rays, relativistic jets, radio lobes--originating from matter falling onto a supermassive black hole. It is widely accepted that orientation effects play a major role in explaining the observational appearance of AGNs. Seen from certain directions, circum-nuclear dust clouds would block our view of the central powerhouse. Indirect evidence suggests that the dust clouds form a parsec-sized torus-shaped distribution. This explanation, however, remains unproved, as even the largest telescopes have not been able to resolve the dust structures. Here we report interferometric mid-infrared observations that spatially resolve these structures in the galaxy NGC 1068. The observations reveal warm (320 K) dust in a structure 2.1 parsec thick and 3.4 parsec in diameter, surrounding a smaller hot structure. As such a configuration of dust clouds would collapse in a time much shorter than the active phase of the AGN, this observation requires a continual input of kinetic energy to the cloud system from a source coexistent with the AGN.

Darwin--a mission to detect and search for life on extrasolar planets.

The discovery of extrasolar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets that vary widely in mass demonstrates that extrasolar planets of low mass exist. In this paper, we describe a mission, called Darwin, whose primary goal is the search for, and characterization of, terrestrial extrasolar planets and the search for life. Accomplishing the mission objectives will require collaborative science across disciplines, including astrophysics, planetary sciences, chemistry, and microbiology. Darwin is designed to detect rocky planets similar to Earth and perform spectroscopic analysis at mid-infrared wavelengths (6-20 mum), where an advantageous contrast ratio between star and planet occurs. The baseline mission is projected to last 5 years and consists of approximately 200 individual target stars. Among these, 25-50 planetary systems can be studied spectroscopically, which will include the search for gases such as CO(2), H(2)O, CH(4), and O(3). Many of the key technologies required for the construction of Darwin have already been demonstrated, and the remainder are estimated to be mature in the near future. Darwin is a mission that will ignite intense interest in both the research community and the wider public.

Integrated Optics for Astronomical Interferometry. III. Optical Validation of a Planar Optics Two-Telescope Beam Combiner.

The optical characterization of a fiber-connected planar optics beam combiner dedicated to astronomical interferometry for two telescopes is presented. The beam combiner, fully integrated on a single 5 mm x 40 mm glass chip, is tested as the central part of an astronomical instrument. The single-mode waveguides are made by silver-ion-exchange technology upon glass substrates and provide spatial filtering, which improves the visibility measurement accuracy by selecting only the fundamental mode of the beams at the telescope focal plane. A global optical throughput of 43% is measured, and the sources of losses are identified and examined in detail. Solutions for improving this throughput are proposed. High and stable contrasts are obtained with a 1.55-mum laser diode (?96%) and with a white-light source (~92%) in the astronomical H filter (1.43 mum; 1.77 mum). The need for accurate control of differential instrumental polarization is demonstrated. In this context the intrinsic polarization-maintaining property of the planar optics component is characterized. This validation of the important potential uses of integrated planar optics should be valuable for future design of optical telescope arrays.