Sulphur is the tenth most abundant element in the Universe and is known to play a significant role in biological systems. Moreover, some sulphur compounds have been proposed as necessary catalysts to form amino acids in the interstellar medium. While the carbon and oxygen budgets have been extensively studied, sulphur is the only element whose gas-phase abundance is still uncertain by several orders of magnitude. Astronomers have observed a series of sulphur-bearing species in space, which contatins less than 5% of the total sulphur atoms. It is still a mistery how and where the rest of sulphur atoms are. One possibility is that these atoms are forming unknown species that have not been identified yet. Alternatively, sulphur can be locked in some kind of (semi-)refractory material such as metallic sulfides (e.g., FeS) and large allotropes (S8) that cannot be detected using current instrumentation. The answer to this question constitutes the so called missing sulphur problem.
The project SUL4LIFE aims to resolve the missing sulphur problem with an innovative methodology that rests on three pillars: (i) To create an unprecedented database of high quality observations of sulphur-bearing molecules which allows us to trace the sulphur content from the natal molecular clouds to protoplanetary disks. This will provide a full inventory of sulphur species in different environments. In addition, we will carry out unbiased spectral surveys to serarch for new sulphur species, undetected in space thus far. (ii) To perform ab initio calculations and laboratory experiments to estimate the key reaction rates that are needed to fix the sulphur network and make chemical models reliable. These complex and accurate chemical models will allow us to predict the chemical composition of the total sulphur budget in different environments, even those difficult to be observed from the Earth. (iii) To perform bi-fluid (gas+dust) 3D magneto-hydrodynamics simulations with chemistry coupled (chemo-MHD) to follow the chemical evolution of the material from the natal cloud to the planet-forming sites, and hence, to investigate how sulphur was delivered to our planet. This heavy computationnal work can be extensively done by using artificial inteligence to reduce the computing time.
This project will disentangle the chemical composition of the sulphur budget from diffuse medium to the formation of proto-planetary disks. Finally, we will know how sulphur was delivered to our planet, which is an essential step to understand the emergence of life.
Funding: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme ERC-AdG-2022 (GA No. 101096293)
Team: Asunción Fuente
The Team
Dr Angèle Taillard
Departamento de Astrofísica
Email: ataillard@cab.inta-csic.es
I received my PhD from Universtity of Bourdeaux in 2023. My expertise is astrochemistry. I am working on developing a new version of the Nautilus chemical code to describe more accurately the sulfur chemistry in star forming regions. The new code will be used to interpret data from James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and millimeter data from different ground-based telescopes (IRAM 30m, NOEMA, ALMA).
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Mgxvz_wAAAAJ&hl=fr
Dr David Navarro-Almaida
Departamento de Astrofísica
Email: dnavarro@cab.inta-csic.es
I received my PhD from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2021. My first post-doctoral stay was in Université Paris-Saclay in collaboration with. Dr Patrick Hennebelle. I am an expert in chemo-MHD simulations of the cloud collapse and early stages of the star formation process. The results of these simulations are used to create synthetic observations to compare with observational data obtained by using the most important millimeter and infrared telescopes (IRAM 30m, Yebes 40m, NOEMA and ALMA interferometers, JWST).
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8499-7447
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=zBXF27cAAAAJ&hl=es
Mrs Aitana Tasa Chaveli
Departamento de Astrofísica
Email: atasa@cab.inta-csic.es
I am a PhD student in Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, INTA/CSIC). The objective my project is to identify and estimate the abundances of compounds containing refractory elements and sulfur (NaS, AlS, CaS, NaSH, MgSH, KSH, PS, S3, S4, SiS) in massive protostars using observations from the large NOEMA and ALMA interferometers. Comparison of the abundances of these refractory species with those of more volatile sulfur compounds such as SO2, H2CS, CH3SH and OCS, will allow us to investigate the distribution of sulfur between refractory and volatile in these regions.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3398-4627
Publications
Formation and desorption of sulphur chains (H2Sx and Sx) in cometary ice: effects of ice composition and temperature. Carrascosa, H., Muñoz Caro, G.~M., Martín-Doménech, R., et al. 2024, MNRAS, 533, 967.
Binding energies and vibrational spectral features of Sn species on amorphous water-ice mantles: a quantum mechanical study. Perrero, J., Beitia-Antero, L., Fuente, A., et al. 2024, ApJ, 971, 36. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad5548
Gas phase Elemental abundances in Molecular cloudS (GEMS). X. Observational effects of turbulence on the chemistry of molecular clouds. Beitia-Antero, L., Fuente, A., Navarro-Almaida, D., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 688, A188. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202346955
A fast neural emulator for interstellar chemistry. Asensio Ramos, A., Westendorp Plaza, C., Navarro-Almaida, D., et al. 2024, MNRAS, 531, 4930. doi:10.1093/mnras/stae1432
PDRs4All IX. Sulfur elemental abundance in the Orion Bar. Fuente, A., Roueff, E., Le Petit, F., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 687, A87. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202449229
PDRs4All VIII: Mid-IR emission line inventory of the Orion Bar. Van De Putte, D., Meshaka, R., Trahin, B., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 687, A86. Doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202449295
PRODIGE- Envelope to Disk with NOEMA. Hsieh, T.-H., Pineda, J. E., Segura-Cox, D.~M., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 686, A289. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202449417
OH as a probe of the warm water cycle in planet-forming disks. Zannese, M., Tabone, B., Habart, E., et al. 2024, Nature Astronomy, 8, 577. doi:10.1038/s41550-024-02203-0.
PRODIGE– planet-forming disks in Taurus with NOEMA. Semenov, D., Henning, T., Guilloteau, S., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A126. Doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202346465
Grain growth and its chemical impact in the first hydrostatic core phase. Navarro-Almaida, D., Lebreuilly, U., Hennebelle, P., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A112. Doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202347847
PDRs4All IV. An embarrassment of riches:Aromatic infrared bands in the OrionBar. Chown, R., Sidhu, A., Peeters, E., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A75. Doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202346662
PDRs4All III. JWST’s NIR spectroscopic view of the OrionBar. Peeters, E., Habart, E., Berné, O., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A74. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202348244
PDRs4All II. JWST’s NIR and MIR imaging view of the Orion Nebula. Habart, E., Peeters, E., Berné, O., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A73. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202346747
A far-ultraviolet-driven photoevaporation flow observed in a protoplanetary disk. Berné, O., Habart, E., Peeters, E., et al. 2024, Science, 383, 988. doi:10.1126/science.adh2861
ABAur, a Rosetta stone for studies of planet formation. Rivière-Marichalar, P., Macías, E., Baruteau, C., et al. 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 683, A141. Doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202347464
Theoretical Modeling of the Adsorption of Neutral and Charged Sulphur-Bearing Species onto Olivine Nanoclusters. Perrero, J., Beitia-Antero, L., Fuente, A., et al. 2024, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 527, 10697. doi:10.1093/mnras/stad3896
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aitana-tasa-chaveli-817993286/
Image Credit: NASA/FUSE/Lynette Cook
