Circumstellar Disks Around Young Stars

How did the planets form? In the last 30 years, we have made progress on this ancient question through the study of gas and dust orbiting young stars - the stuff out of which planets formed. Extensive observations with ground-based and space-based observatories, including Hubble and the Infrared Space Observatory, are showing us the planet-forming environments of young stars - their structure, what they are made of, how long they last, etc. Interesting and complex problems in planet formation, such as the roles of turbulence and magnetic fields, are still the objects of theoretical and observational research.

Speaker: Dr. Roger Knacke, Penn State University (ret.)