Chemistry in Protoplanetary Disks

The wide range of planetary system architectures and exoplanet properties is certainly linked to a range of properties of their birth-places, the disk-like structures around young stars composed of gas and dust particles. These disks share many of the properties of the solar nebula from which the Sun and our planetary system formed, although their masses, radial dimensions, and internal structures can be very different. Dust spectroscopy has revealed the mineralogical composition of the protoplanetary dust particles that are mostly found in the form of amorphous silicates, crystalline forsterite, water ice, and other molecular ices. There is strong observational evidence that the dust particles in disks can grow in size far beyond the typical sub-micrometer sizes of interstellar dust grains.