Starts With A Bang #128 - Planet formation and proto-protoplanets

About this episode

This episode explores the processes of planet formation and features Dr. Charles Law discussing the young stellar system Gomez's Hamburger and its exoplanet GoHam b.

Whenever a new star forms, several processes appear to be nearly universal. A cloud of cold molecular gas contracts, fragments, and rapidly collapses in certain places. The densest, coldest clumps of gas contract first, drawing in larger and larger amounts of matter onto them. A large, massive enough clump will heat up and have a random shape: collapsing along the shortest axis first, forming a protostar at the center surrounded by a disk of material. That's where the story of planet formation begins. Assuming the conditions in the disk are sufficient, clumps will begin to form, and over hundreds of thousands to millions of years, the first protoplanets and then full-fledged planets will arise: a relatively rapid cosmic process, that's usually all complete within a mere 10 million years: a blink of a cosmic eye in the history of our own 4.5 billion year old Solar System. However, by looking at the youngest stellar and planetary systems, we can uncover many details that are common to planetary systems in general, and in turn, we can learn how our own Solar System grew up. This fantastic episode of the Starts With A Bang podcast features observational astrochemist Dr. Charles Law…

People in this episode

Host: Ethan Siegel

Guest: Dr. Charles Law

Topics covered

• planet formation
• proto-protoplanets
• stellar systems
• astrochemistry
• exoplanets

Keywords

• planet formation
• protoplanets
• Gomez's Hamburger
• GoHam b
• stellar systems

Mentioned in this episode

Products: GoHam b

Books & works: Gomez's Hamburger

Places: Solar System

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