Press

GROWING UP IN Lutheran Sweden, Karin Öberg had no inkling that she would one day become an astrochemist, the first to observe a complex organic molecule in the freezing cloud of gas and dust surrounding a young star—or that she would convert to...

Astronomers may have found a gaseous disk around a planet orbiting the young star AS 209. This is one of just four circumplanetary disk candidates discovered so far, and these observations enable the first mass estimate of a circumplanetary disk’s gas...

Delayed for more than a decade, the world’s next flagship space telescope will launch in December, giving scientists an unprecedented view of chemistry around the galaxy JWST will provide scientists with new ways to study gas-phase molecules in...

The dust and gas where planets form have been mapped in extraordinary detail around five nearby young stars—and astronomers have found organic molecules that are implicated in the emergence of life on Earth. The findings suggest that the basic chemical...

Cambridge, MA -- Astronomers have mapped out the chemicals inside of planetary nurseries in extraordinary detail. The newly unveiled maps reveal the locations of dozens of molecules within five protoplanetary disks — regions of dust and gas where planets...

The Harvard astrochemist discusses how reactions on icy dust grains shape solar systems. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00818

With new tools offering an unprecedented view of a planet’s molecular building blocks, astrochemists are working to pin down the recipe for a habitable world. https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2021/07/28/karin-obergs-search-for-the…...

Planets form from the gas and dust in disks that surround young stars. Chemicals in the disk that evaporate easily, called volatiles, include important molecules like water, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, as well as other simple organic molecules. The amount...

In recent years, high resolution observations of dust structures have revolutionized our understanding of planet formation. However, this new image of the gas indicates that the current view of planet formation is still too simplistic and that it might be...

Title: An ALMA Survey of H2CO in Protoplanetary Disks Authors: Jamila Pegues, Karin Oberg, J. Bergner et al. First Author Institution: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian Open access arXiv closed access on ApJ Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV...