Janus Kozdon, a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astrononmy at Clemson University, will present research at the American Astronomical Society meeting in June. Kozdon’s research validated a novel technique to study forming planets in young stars.
A little over three decades ago, the only planets we could confirm were the ones in our solar system. But with the advent of more powerful telescopes on the ground and new observatories in space, scientists have since discovered the existence of thousands of exoplanets orbiting stars other than our sun. According to Janus Kozdon, a graduate student in the Clemson University Department of Physics and Astronomy, the vast majority of the observed exoplanets orbit older stars, with very few found orbiting young stars, who are still forming protoplanetary disks from gas and dust. Kodzon says detecting planets in these young systems is challenging because the disk can obscure the planet’s signature. Kodzon and his team developed a novel technique to study planets surrounding young stars through disk morphology, which he plans to the June American Astronomical Society meeting in Madison, Wisconsin.
Kodzon’s research, published in the Astronomical Journal in August 2023, focuses on CI Tau, a young star located about 523 light-years away, where an exoplanet was already discovered within its protoplanetary disk. Observing CI Tau for nine nights, Kozdon used spectroscopy and his custom model to analyze carbon monoxide in the disk, revealing its two oppositely oriented components. The findings from this research provided the first empirical evidence of disk eccentricities potentially caused by the embedded planet. Sean Brittain, Clemson’s associate provost and dean of undergraduate learning; Jeffrey Fung, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy; and physics graduate students Stanley Jensen and John Kern also worked on the project. This work sheds light on planet-disk interactions and opens new avenues for studying forming planets around young stars.
Researchers/collaborators from the University of Maryland, the National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, and Texas State University were also involved in the research.
Credit: David Brandin
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Clemson grad student’s study sheds light on planet formation in infant stars | Clemson News
