Related papers: NICMOS Imaging of Candidate Extra-Solar Planetary …
Kant and Laplace suggested the Solar System formed from a rotating gaseous disk in the 18th century, but convincing evidence that young stars are indeed surrounded by such disks was not presented for another 200 years. As we move into the…
Several hundred stars older than 10 million years have been observed to have infrared excesses. These observations are explained by dust grains formed by the collisional fragmentation of hidden planetesimals. Such dusty planetesimal discs…
Thousands of extrasolar planets have been discovered, and it is clear that the galactic planetary census draws on a diversity greatly exceeding that exhibited by the solar system's planets. We review significant landmarks in the chronology…
We develop an idealized dynamical model to predict the typical properties of outer extrasolar planetary systems, at radii beyond 5 AU. Our hypothesis is that dynamical evolution in outer planetary systems is controlled by a combination of…
Since the discovery of the first extra-solar planets, we are confronted with the puzzling diversity of planetary systems. Processes like planet radial migration in gas-disks and planetary orbital instabilities, often invoked to explain the…
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…
Giant impacts refer to collisions between two objects each of which is massive enough to be considered at least a planetary embryo. The putative collision suffered by the proto-Earth that created the Moon is a prime example, though most…
Massive giant planets, such as the ones being discovered by direct imaging surveys, likely experience the majority of their growth through a circumplanetary disc. We argue that the entropy of accreted material is determined by boundary…
Understanding how giant and terrestrial planets form and evolve, what is their internal structure and that of their atmosphere, represents one of the major challenges of modern astronomy, which is directly connected to the ultimate search…
Beta Pictoris (Beta Pic)'s well-studied debris disk and two known giant planets, in combination with the stability of HST/STIS (and now also JWST), offers a unique opportunity to test planet-disk interaction models and to observe recent…
The discovery of exoplanets in binary star systems-now numbering about 850 of the nearly 4,600 known exoplanet systems-raises questions about whether observational bias or stellar companions inhibit planet formation. While most studies on…
Although there is abundant and diverse observational evidence in support of white dwarf stars hosting planets or debris disks which form in the catastrophic destruction of various planetary bodies, the key processes that explain these…
Observations of circumstellar disks around stars as a function of stellar properties such as mass, metallicity, multiplicity, and age, provide constraints on theories concerning the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Utilizing…
Thousands of exoplanets have been found with many widely different from the ones in our own system. Despite the success, systems with planets in wide orbits analogous to those of Jupiter and Saturn, in the critical first several hundred…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
High-contrast imaging of debris disk systems permits us to assess the composition and size distribution of circumstellar dust, to probe recent dynamical histories, and to directly detect and characterize embedded exoplanets. Observations of…
There is strong evidence that the planets in the solar system evolved from a disk-shaped solar nebula ~4.56 Gyr ago. By studying young stars in various evolutionary stages, one aims at tracing back the early history of the solar system, in…
We present a review of the interplay between the evolution of circumstellar disks and the formation of planets, both from the perspective of theoretical models and dedicated observations. Based on this, we identify and discuss fundamental…
This prospective chapter gives our view on the evolution of the study of circumstellar discs within the next 20 years from both observational and theoretical sides. We first present the expected improvements in our knowledge of…
Our knowledge of the population of young (age <=750 Myr) stars that lie within ~120 pc of the Sun is rapidly accelerating. The vast majority of these nearby, young stars can be placed in kinematically coherent groups (nearby, young moving…