Solar
System
Pre-solar
nebulae, circumstellar dust shells and dust
rings are the building blocks of solar systems
and it is believed, are closely related to
the origin of life. Our solar system is the
obvious place to study the conditions and
processes which lead to the formation of
planets and the evolution of their surfaces
and atmospheres, and to search for traces
of pre-biological chemistry. It is therefore
essential to study primordial bodies like
comets and asteroids as well as the evolved
planets and their satellites. |
Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock |
Star & Star
Formation
Stars
generally form through a fragmented collapse
of a molecular cloud as a group or cluster.
This simple picture seems to be generally
true but bears many unsolved details. |
Beta Pictoris Dust Disk |
Interstellar
Matter
The ISM
reflects the global history of a galaxy.
Since most of the ISM is cold or, in the
presence of a radiation field, warm, most
of its continuum radiation and spectral line
emission emerges in the MIR, FIR, and Submm.
SOFIA is thus the only observatory ideally
suited to study these processes. |
Eagle Nebula, M16 |
Evolution
Of Galaxies
With the
advent of larger ground-based and space borne
telescopes, covering a broad spectral range,
galactic evolution has grown into a major
research area. SOFIA will significantly contribute
to, or solve, several of the key issues. |
Whirlpool Galaxy |
