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About Me

I am currently a European Space Agency Research Fellow based at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. Before my position at ESA, I obtained my PhD at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

 

I am interested in how things are made. My research focuses on the formation of low mass stars, brown dwarfs and planets. This means I spend the majority of my time observing nearby star forming regions, as this provides a unique window to study these formation processes in action.

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​Recently my work has been focusing on isolated Planetary Mass Objects (PMOs). These are objects below the deuterium burning limit of 13MJup. PMOs are not massive enough to sustain hydrogen fusion like a star. They are inherently faint and will cool over time, becoming fainter throughout their life. However, when PMOs are young they are still warm from their formation and are observable in the infrared. This provides a valuable window into a very exciting mass range that contains both the extreme lower limits of star formation (brown dwarfs) and rogue planets that have been ejected from their host star system.​​ PMOs present a unique opportunity to study both star formation and planet formation at the same time.

Image of Samuel Pearson

Image: Samuel Pearson on the summit of Roche Faurio in the French Alps.

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