Postdoctoral Fellowship: AAPF: Interstellar Comets and the New Insights to Planet Formation They Provide

Darryl Seligman is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Cornell University. Seligman will conduct research to maximize the scientific return from the newly discovered population of interstellar comets. Results from this study will reveal new insights into how the planet formation process varies throughout the galaxy. For the educational component of this project, Seligman will develop educational materials to help identify misinformation in media, using the case study of artificial origins of interstellar objects to motivate more pressing matters such as climate change and the global pandemic. The forthcoming Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will detect 1-3 interstellar objects every year. A subset of these objects will exhibit trajectories amenable to detailed ground and space-based follow-up observational characterization. With this motivation, Seligman will identify expected interstellar comet velocities (which trace galactic age) and compositions (which trace formation location) based on their original systems and formation locations within their protoplanetary disks. Seligman will predict exoplanet atmospheric compositional signatures of volatile enrichment from interstellar comet analogues which will inform our understanding of volatile delivery to short period exoplanets. Finally, Seligman will calculate detection rates and population statistics for interstellar objects that the LSST will discover that will be suitable targets for detailed ground and space based follow-up measurements. This research award is partially funded by a generous gift from Charles Simonyi to the NSF Astronomy division. The project includes significant contributions to Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.