Two Eyes are Better than One: JWST and ALMA Look at Star Formation

Stars and their planetary systems form in cold interstellar gas and dust clouds impermeable to the optical light our eyes can see.  By contrast, light at much longer wavelengths is able to penetrate these regions allowing us to directly observe stars that are currently forming.  The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is sensitive to ices, warm dust and hot gasses emanating from these objects, whereas the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) is capable of resolving the cold gas and dust environments of protostars. After detailing the capabilities of each of these observatories and outlining the currently known phases of the star-formation process, I will demonstrate how the synergy of combined JWST and ALMA observations has advanced the field, with a specific example of a young, multiple system whose twin jets and aligned twin disks could only be revealed by the combined data from both instruments.

Speaker: Mary Barsony, SETI Institute