Ross Jennings Comps Presentation
Monday, March 30th 2015
8:30 am
Olin 101
The Formation of Planets
Ever since the seventeenth century, when Kepler formulated his laws of planetary motion, scientists have been trying to understand how planets and solar systems come to be. However, until the 1990s, the only planets we knew of were those orbiting our own sun. In the past 20 years, nearly 1,800 planets have been discovered around other stars, and these discoveries have had a profound impact on theories of planet formation. Additionally, other factors, including the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and steep increases in computing power, have recently increased our knowledge of the mechanisms of planet formation. In this talk, I will provide an overview of what we know about the process of planet formation now, including how dust is aggregated into planets, how interactions between planets and the surrounding dust and gas can shape their orbits, and why we now believe the moon formed when a protoplanet the size of Mars collided with the early Earth.