Planet Formation: Terrestrial and Extra Solar
Coordinators: Douglas N.C. Lin, Jonathan Lunine, Norman Murray
The recent discoveries of extrasolar planets(now numbering around
100), combined with recently obtained observational upper
limits on the lifetimes of protoplanetary disks, make this an ideal
time to rethink how planets form. This program will examine the
formation process from dust grains to planetesimals, from
planetesimals to Earth mass bodies or multiple-Earth mass cores, and
from cores to gas giant planets. It will also consider post-formation
evolution, e.g., planet-disk interactions, in an attempt to understand
both the very short orbital periods of many of the extrasolar planets,
and their often large eccentricities.