Related papers: The coolest 'stars' are free-floating planets
We reconsider the commonly held assumption that warm debris disks are tracers of terrestrial planet formation. The high occurrence rate inferred for Earth-mass planets around mature solar-type stars based on exoplanet surveys (roughly 20%)…
The slow rotation of some young stars and the extreme rotation periods of some Ap stars have so far defied explanation. The absence of sufficiently efficient braking mechanisms for newly formed stars points to the star formation process…
We investigate the structure of accretion disks around massive protostar applying steady state models of thin disks. The thin disk equations are solved with proper opacities for dust and gas taking into account the huge temperature…
We present data obtained with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope (Spitzer) for a sample of 74 young (t < 30 Myr old) Sun-like (0.7 < M(star)/M(Sun) < 1.5) stars. These are a sub-set of the observations that…
Observational evidence exists for the formation of gas giant planets on wide orbits around young stars by disk gravitational instability, but the roles of disk instability and core accretion for forming gas giants on shorter period orbits…
The Core Accretion model is widely accepted as the primary mechanism for forming planets up to a few Jupiter masses. However, the formation of super-massive planets remains a subject of debate, as their formation via the Core Accretion…
Fragmentation in a gravitationally unstable accretion disk can be an important pathway for forming stellar/planetary companions. To characterize quantitatively the condition for and outcome of fragmentation under realistic thermodynamics,…
Observations of the H66a recombination line from the ionized gas in the cluster of newly formed massive stars, G10.6-0.4, show that most of the continuum emission derives from the dense gas in an ionized accretion flow that forms an ionized…
The Kepler mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets around various stars with different spectral types (M, K, G, and F) and thus different masses and effective temperatures. Previous studies have shown that the planet occurrence rate,…
The formation history of Jupiter has been of interest due to its ability to shape the solar system's history. Yet little attention has been paid to the formation and growth of Saturn and the other giant planets. Here, we explore the…
Free-floating planets are a new class of planets recently discovered. These planets don't orbit within stellar systems, instead living a nomadic life within the galaxy. How such objects formed remains elusive. Numerous works have explored…
The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about…
Young protostellar discs are likely to be both self-gravitating, and to support grain growth to sizes where the particles decoupled from the gas. This combination could lead to short-wavelength fragmentation of the solid component in…
High resolution (lambda / Delta-lambda = 50,000) K-band spectra of massive, embedded, young stellar objects are presented. The present sample consists of four massive young stars located in nascent clusters powering Galactic giant H II…
Planet formation occurs over a few Myr within protoplanetary discs of dust and gas, which are often assumed to evolve in isolation. However, extended gaseous structures have been uncovered around many protoplanetary discs, suggestive of…
Despite the revolution in our knowledge resulting from the detection of planets around mature stars, we know almost nothing about planets orbiting young stars because rapid rotation and active photospheres preclude detection by radial…
Theories of the formation and early evolution of planetary systems postulate that planets are born in circumstellar disks, and undergo radial migration during and after dissipation of the dust and gas disk from which they formed. The…
It is well accepted that 'hot Jupiters' did not form in situ, as the temperature in the protoplanetary disc at the radius at which they now orbit would have been too high for planet formation to have occurred. These planets, instead, form…
The formation of planets depends on the underlying protoplanetary disc structure, which influences both the accretion and migration rates of embedded planets. The disc itself evolves on time-scales of several Myr during which both…
The standard picture of accretion is a steady flow of matter from the disc onto the young star - a concept which assumes the star-disc system to be completely isolated. However, in a dense cluster environment star-disc systems do interact…