Monday, November 03, 2014 at 4:00 PM

JILA Auditorium

Katherine Kretke, SWRI, Boulder

"From Pebbles to Planets"

Abstract:

In recent years there has been a radical shift in the thinking about small-body and planet formation. Particles with stopping times comparable to their orbital times, often called "pebbles" (although they may range from millimeters to meters in size), interact with gaseous protoplanetary disks in very special ways. This allows them to possibly not only directly produce the planetesimal building blocks of planetary systems, but also later accrete on to these planetesimals, potentially solving long standing mysteries about the Solar System's formation: the low mass of the asteroid belt, Mars's small size, and the very existence of Jupiter and Saturn. In this talk I will review these recent developments and discuss the promises of using pebbles to solve many problems in the formation of our own, and other, planetary systems.

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