REVOLT

For centuries, humankind has tried to understand our place in the universe and whether life may have proliferated elsewhere. Characterising the many nearby planetary systems that surround us may provide the answer. This proposal will characterise the belts of planetesimals, analogues of the Kuiper belt in our Solar System, that are detected around more than 25% of stars. In the last few years, the Atacama Large Millimetre Array led to a paradigm change in observations of these planetesimal belts; we are now able to detect and characterise gas, in what was previously thought to be a gas-free environment. This ERC will use observations of gas in debris discs to provide a crucial new perspective regarding exoplanetary systems. This complements existing studies by investigating all the repercussions of the presence of gas in planetary systems, whilst providing a unique new insight into the formation of planetary atmospheres. This work will allow us to obtain measurements of exocomet compositions in these systems, lead to a thorough understanding of the gas evolution and its origin, and most importantly to indirectly discovering giant or terrestrial planets at a few au from their stars. This work will explore a new research frontier, investigating the late accretion of planetary atmospheres from this huge, newly discovered gas supply. Such an avenue changes the current paradigm of atmosphere formation and may be critical to a planet's habitability.