OATs workshop 2013 Macroarea 3 Sun, Solar System, Astrobiology Solar System and Astrobiology. Both types of research are active in our institute, but with one important difference: Solar System is well established research, whereas Astrobiology is under development. All together, 3 staff people are involved in these activities, but with a number of local, national and international collaborations. Contacts: M. Fulle, M. Messerotti, M. Maris, G. Vladilo

OATs workshop 2013 Macroarea 3 Sun, Solar System, Astrobiology Long tradition Recent Solar System and Astrobiology. Both types of research are active in our institute, but with one important difference: Solar System is well established research, whereas Astrobiology is under development. All together, 3 staff people are involved in these activities, but with a number of local, national and international collaborations. Contacts: M. Fulle, M. Messerotti, M. Maris, G. Vladilo

Solar Radio Physics and Meteorology of Space: Contact: M. Messerotti Solar Physics Solar Radio Physics and Meteorology of Space: Contact: M. Messerotti Local research on Solar System covers two topics: physics of cometary emission, carried out by Marco Fulle, and physics of interplanetary dust, carried out by Michele Maris.

Solar physics Projects Diachronic observations of the radio Sun Products and services for Space Weather Software tools for advanced handling of heliophysics data Participation to space projects

Diachronic observations of the radio Sun Carried out for many years by the Trieste Solar Radio System (TSRS), based on a set of “Callisto” digital radio spectrometer located in the Basovizza Observing Station operating in the metric and decimetric bands aimed at radio physics studies and at monitoring GPS interferences http://radiosun.oats.inaf.it

Diachronic observations of the radio Sun The radio system has been down for several years due to mechanical failure (2009) and lightning stroke (2010) In 2012 Alessandro Marassi installed a radiospectrograph, e-Callisto, making the radio system partially work Subsequent mechanical failure has again stopped the system

Tools for handling of heliophysics data Software tools developed in the framework of the EC FP7 projects “Heliophysics Integrated Observatory (HELIO)” http://www.helio-vo.eu The FP7 project HELIO has been concluded at the end of 2012 “Coordination Action for the integration of Solar System Infrastructures and Science (CASSIS)” http://www.cassis-vo.eu

Products and services for Space Weather In the framework of the EC COST Action ES0803 “Developing Space Weather products and services in Europe” http://www.costes0803.noa.gr the NATO RTO SCI-229 Task Group “Space Environment Support to NATO Space Situational Awareness” http://www.cso.nato.int/activities.aspx

Physics of cometary emission Interplanetary dust Solar System Physics of cometary emission Interplanetary dust Local research on Solar System covers two topics: physics of cometary emission, carried out by Marco Fulle, and physics of interplanetary dust, carried out by Michele Maris.

Physics of cometary emission Contact: M. Fulle Solar System Physics of cometary emission Contact: M. Fulle Local research on Solar System covers two topics: physics of cometary emission, carried out by Marco Fulle, and physics of interplanetary dust, carried out by Michele Maris.

ESA Rosetta Mission (M. Fulle) M. Fulle: Inter-Disciplinary Scientist of Rosetta Mission Co-I of dust collector experiment GIADA PI A. Rotundi, Univ. Napoli Co-I of wide and small field cameras OSIRIS PI H. Sierks, MPI Scientific aim: Physical models of the dust and gas emissions from comets First 3D+t hydro-models of the dust and gas coma linked to the nucleus surface Collaboration with J. F. Crifo, CNRS

ESA Rosetta Mission Rosetta: ESA’s mission to short period comet 67P Rosetta spacecraft will be the first to undertake the long-term exploration of a comet at close quarters It comprises a large orbiter and a small lander Each of these carries a large complement of scientific experiments designed to complete the most detailed study of a comet ever attempted Let’s start from cometary physics. Marco Fulle is directly involved in the ESA Rosetta mission. … READ …

Rosetta is coming soon ! January 2014 In the three following months automatic awakening of the probe from the two-year hibernation (never done before) In the three following months “Health” tests of the instruments Summer 2014 flyby of the nucleus starting from a distance of ~ 106 km down to less than 100 km

Study of the abundance of alcali elements in comets

Study of the alcali content of comet nuclei A rare detection of KI in a comet spectrum Na I K I Li I

Model A photoionization model was developed and applied to recover the primordial abundances of the nucleus starting from the present-day abundances observed in the spectrum The model was tested on the published data of comet C/1965 S1

Results After the application of the photoionization model, the results indicate a primordial Na/K abundance ratio in line with the solar ratio, but Li depleted by a factor > 4

Interplanetary dust Contact: M. Maris Solar System Interplanetary dust Contact: M. Maris Local research on Solar System covers two topics: physics of cometary emission, carried out by Marco Fulle, and physics of interplanetary dust, carried out by Michele Maris.

Interplanetary dust (M. Maris) Zodiacal Light Emission (ZLE) Thermal emission from Interplanetary Dust Seen as a large-scale, far-IR foreground of the CMB Importance Interpretation of Planck mission data Solar System physics Collaboration IAP-Paris, Univ. Paris 3, IASFBO, JPL, Grenoble Participants M. Maris, C. Burigana, A. Gruppuso, K.Ganga, A. Fraisse Let’s now come to the research on Interplanetary Dust carried out by Michele Maris.

Zodiacal Light Emission Recent developments based on the analysis of Planck data will be presented in the next talk by M. Maris

Planetary and Galactic habitability Contact: G. Vladilo Astrobiology Planetary and Galactic habitability Contact: G. Vladilo Let’s now come to astrobiology. Most of the local activity is focussed on studies of planetary and Galactic habitability.The list of collaborators will become clear in the course of this presentation. The number of people involved is not small, but for most of them the involvement is limited or sporadic.

General framework for studies of habitability Life as a physical/chemical process that requires specific ambient conditions  Constraints on the physical/chemical properties of astronomical environments suitable to host life The general idea behind the concept of habitability is to treat life as a physical/chemical process that requires specific ambient conditions.

Studies of habitability Main topics Planetary habitability Galactic habitability Most of the current research is centered on planetary habitability, with a parallel development of a project on Galactic habitability. Different programmes are under consideration: some are exploratory, basically feasibility studies, others have already well tested working toolsready for applications.

Planetary habitability Focus on terrestrial-type planets in the Solar System in extrasolar planetary systems Specific projects Planetary climates Dynamical stability of planetary orbits

Planetary habitability Energy Balance Models of planetary climates as a tool for investigating the habitability of terrestrial planets G. Vladilo(1,2), G. Murante(1), L. Silva(1) A. Provenzale(3) G. Ferri(2), S. Scarpato(2) (1) INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste (2) University of Trieste, Department of Physics (3) Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC)-CNR, Torino

Energy balance models (EBM) of planetary climate Surface temperature  surface habitability

Pressure-dependent habitable zone of Earth-like planets

Recent developments of the climate model Top-of-atmosphere albedo Effects of surface gravity

Gravity & pressure effects on the atmospheric transfer of radiation Gravity effects Gravity & pressure effects on the atmospheric transfer of radiation

Latest applications of our model Habitability of extrasolar planets Latest applications of our model

Kepler-62e

“Gravity cooling” effect

Dynamical stability of planetary systems: effects on planetary habitability M. Maris, G. Vladilo Effects on planetary habitability: 1) variation of the distance to the central star 2) triggering episodes of collisions with minor bodies

Dynamical stability of planetary systems Methods (M. Maris) N-body dynamical simulations Single-step integrators best suited for treating instabilities Development of algorithms for treating the statistics of collisions with minor bodies minor bodies simulated as test particles

Dynamical stability of planetary orbits The integrators and original algorithms are tested and can be applied to specific studies Dynamical instabilities in the early Solar System Extrasolar planetary systems This project is currently in “standby”

Galactic habitability Galactic habitable zone (GHZ) Link with Galactic evolution studies Galactic properties relevant for habitability Metallicity  probability of rocky planet formation SN rate  probability of planet sterilization … but also other properties are relevant to habitability

Galactic Habitable Zone Cosmological SPH N-body simulations of a Milky Way-like galaxy Evolutionary maps of metallicity and SN rates

Poster presented at the International Meeting ISSOL 2008, Florence

Galactic Habitability In the last few years the galaxy simulations that we plan to use for this study have been developed in the framework of cosmological simulations Now these tools are ready to be applied to studies of Galactic habitability People currently involved: G. Murante, P. Monaco, G. Vladilo We are open to collaborations, in particular in aspects related to the chemical evolution

Links with the national exoplanets community Participation to the PRIN request 2010-2011 “Architecture & Physical Properties of Planetary Systems” No national request advanced for 2011-2012

Links with national astrobiology community GV currently member of the board of the Società Italiana di Astrobiologia Links with national communities working on: Prebiotic chemistry Origin of life Extremophilic organisms Life in space environment

Organization of meetings General agreement with the SIA to organize the 2015 national workshop at Trieste … more details to come

Astrobiology In the Trieste area we have a huge potential for building up a multi-disciplinary network at a very low cost (building up on existing expertise & resources)

Didactic activity Didactics Course on “Planets & Astrobiology” Univ. of Trieste, Physics Dept. (laurea magistrale interateneo in Fisica) Stages & thesis projects Thesis of Salvatore Scarpato: “Effetti di pressione e gravità sull’abitabilità di pianeti extrasolari” Short course at University of Ljubljana Lesson at the Master in Science Communication (SISSA)

Impact on public outreach We have directly experienced the public impact of working in the field of planetary habitability The paper on the effects of pressure has attracted the attention of several media newspapers national TV (TG Leonardo) international web site of public outreach Astrobiology Magazine (www.astrobio.net)

MA3 Final considerations

Sun & Solar System Excellent expertise is present Involvement in top-level European space research projects “Historical” problem: no local support In terms of investments, collaborators, & career recognition

Astrobiology “Low-risk strategy” Most collaborators dedicate a limited amount of their time Most technical tools developed in the framework of well established research lines People that dedicates a large amount of time focus their efforts on the most established projects Currently, planetary climate and habitability Future developments depend on the degree of involvement of the collaborators