The solid content of circumstellar disks is inherited from the interstellar medium: dust
particles of at most a micrometer in size. Protoplanetary disks are the environment where …

The discovery of large numbers of young low-mass stars and brown dwarfs over the past
decade has made it possible to investigate star formation and early evolution in a previously …

Aims. Photodissociation by UV light is an important destruction mechanism for carbon
monoxide (CO) in many astrophysical environments, ranging from interstellar clouds to …

The growth of solid particles towards meter sizes in protoplanetary disks has to circumvent at
least two hurdles, namely the rapid loss of material due to radial drift and particle …

The Kepler spacecraft has discovered a large number of planets with up to one-year periods
and down to terrestrial sizes. While the majority of the target stars are main-sequence dwarfs …

Silicate dust particles are an important player in the cosmic life cycle of matter. They have
been detected in a wide variety of environments, ranging from nearby protoplanetary disks …

We present a uniform analysis of all mid-infrared R≈ 90 spectra of field M5–T9 dwarfs
obtained with the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS). The sample contains 113 spectra out …

We report the results of an infrared Doppler survey designed to detect brown dwarf and giant
planetary companions to a magnitude-limited sample of ultracool dwarfs. Using the …

The Stardust samples collected from Comet 81P/Wild 2 indicate that large-scale mixing
occurred in the solar nebula, carrying materials from the hot inner regions to cooler …

Context. Crystalline silicates are an important tracer of the evolution of dust, the main
building block of planet formation. In an inner protoplanetary disk, amorphous silicates are …