Building Planetary Systems

The last decade has seen an explosion in our knowledge of extra-solar planets, and we now know of thousands of exoplanet systems with an extraordinary range of properties. These planets formed in cold discs of dust and gas around young, newly-formed stars, and recently we have also seen major advances in our observations of such discs. In this talk I will discuss how these protoplanetary discs shape the formation and evolution of planetary systems, and how planets and other processes can give rise to observable structures in their parent discs. I will present new models of protoplanetary disc winds, and show how forbidden emission lines can be used to measure the properties of these winds and their effects on disc evolution. I will also present new models of planet-disc interactions, and look in particular at the dynamics and observable signatures of planets on inclined orbits. Finally, I will discuss how we can apply these results more broadly, and what we can hope to learn in the coming years.

Speaker: Richard Alexander (University of Leicester)

All 2021 Fall Colloquium talks are held on Wednesday at 3:00 PM.  You may join the virtual colloquium at the links listed below. 

• Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/STScILiveScienceEvents
• Live Captioning Link: https://www.streamtext.net/player?event=STSI-ColloqiumSeries

Please direct questions or comments to contact above. The Fall Colloquium Committee members are: JHU Members: Kevin Schlaufman, Co-Chair, Ethan Vishniac, José Luis Bernal and STScI Members: David Law, Co-chair, Alex Hamanowicz and Susan Mullally.