Asteroidscomets

Katherine Kretke (SwRI)

January
13
S M T W T F S

From Pebbles to Planets: There have been many long standing mysteries regarding the formation of our Solar System: How did the cores of the giant planets form in the relatively short timescale available? Why is Mars so small compared to the Earth and Venus? How did the initial planetesimal building blocks of the planets form in the first place? In recent years, theories surrounding the formation of small-bodies and planets have been undergoing a radical shift. Particles with stopping times comparable to their orbital times, often called "pebbles" (although they range from sub-centimeter to meter sizes), interact with gaseous protoplanetary disks in very special ways. Gas drag can first concentrate the pebbles, allowing them to gravitationally collapse and directly produce the planetesimal building blocks, and then drag will cause them to be efficiently accreted on to these planetesimals, rapidly producing larger planetary embryos. In this talk I discuss how pebble accretion may be able to answer long standing questions in planet formation and explain the observed structure of our Solar System: by forming a system of giant planets, ice giants, and terrestrial planets; even providing an explanation the for the low mass of Mars and of the Asteroid Belt.

Date: January 13th, 2016
Location: MR LCR