The observational era of planet formation

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• Giovanni Rosotti (Leiden University)
• Tuesday 05 November 2019, 15:00-16:00
• PW-SR2 (106) .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Silvia Toonen.

In 1995 the first exoplanet was observed. The field has literally exploded since then and we now know more than 3000 exoplanets. These discoveries have revolutionised planet formation theories that were designed to reproduce the Solar System. However, all these planets are around main sequence stars, making it difficult to tell apart how these systems formed from their subsequent evolution. Thanks to new telescope, particularly the radio-telescope ALMA and the instrument SPHERE on the VLT , we are now starting to detect young, forming planets still embedded in their birth-sites, proto-planetary discs. At the same time, these revolutionary datasets allow us to study in unprecedented detail the environment in which planets form. I will discuss what kind of planets we are currently capable of detecting and how we can measure their masses from observations. Then, I will present a gallery of the young planets found up to now. These discoveries are challenging for planet formation theories because they imply that planet formation is much faster than we thought before. I will conclude by presenting ongoing efforts to revise the formation theories in light of these observations.

This talk is part of the Astrophysics Seminars series.

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• Astrophysics Seminars
• Bham Talks
• PW-SR2 (106)
• What's on in Physics?

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