From Dust to Giants: Planet formation in our Solar system and abroad

From Dust to Giants: Planet formation in our Solar system and abroad

Lecture in English by Dr. Alexander Cridland (USM, LMU)

Friday, 28 February 2025, 8 p.m.
Venue: Volkssternwarte München, Rosenheimer Str. 145h

The birth and early growth of planets, often called their ‚formation‘, involves a wide range of physical processes that turns the tiniest grain of dust to the largest planets we can find. In this lecture I will take you through these processes as we build up planetary systems, including ours, from the material leftover from long dead stars. These models of planet formation have been developing for over 50 years but it was the last 10-20 years that has seen important, data-driven breakthroughs thanks to the discovery of the first planets outside our Solar system. The characterization of these extra-solar planets (or exoplanets for short) have allowed for the first statistical studies of planet formation as we try to recreate the population of known exoplanetary systems. These studies not only teach us about the underlying physics that lead to the growth of planets outside our Solar system, but helps us understand our own place in the cosmos.