Planetesimals are solid objects thought to exist in protoplanetary disks and debris disks. Believed to have formed in the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago, they aid study of its formation.
The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System. It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting the Sun which clumped up together to form the planets. The theory was developed by Immanuel Kant and published in his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) and then modified in 1796 by Pierre Laplace. Originally applied to the Solar System, the process of planetary system formation is now thought to be at work throughout the universe. The widely accepted modern variant of the nebular theory is the solar nebular disk model (SNDM) or solar nebular model. It offered explanations for a variety of properties of the Solar System, including the nearly circular and coplanar orbits of the planets, and their motion in the same direction as the Sun's rotation. Some elements of the original nebular theory are echoed in modern theories of planetary formation, but most elements have been superseded.
A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may not be considered an accretion disk, while the two are similar. While they are similar, an accretion disk is hotter, and spins much faster. It is also found on black holes, not stars. This process should not be confused with the accretion process thought to build up the planets themselves. Externally illuminated photo-evaporating protoplanetary disks are called proplyds.
A protoplanet is a large planetary embryo that originated within a protoplanetary disk and has undergone internal melting to produce a differentiated interior. Protoplanets are thought to form out of kilometer-sized planetesimals that gravitationally perturb each other's orbits and collide, gradually coalescing into the dominant planets.
The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) is a scientific instrument for infrared astronomy, installed on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), operating from 1997 to 1999, and from 2002 to 2008. Images produced by NICMOS contain data from the near-infrared part of the light spectrum.
An ice giant is a giant planet composed mainly of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. There are two ice giants in the Solar System: Uranus and Neptune.
A primary atmosphere is an atmosphere of a planet that forms by accretion of gaseous matter from the accretion disc of the planet's sun. Planets such as Jupiter and Saturn have primary atmospheres. Primary atmospheres are very thick compared to secondary atmospheres like the one found on Earth. The primary atmosphere was lost on the terrestrial planets due to a combination of surface temperature, mass of the atoms and escape velocity of the planet.
HD 100546, also known as KR Muscae, is a pre-main sequence star of spectral type B8 to A0 located 353 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Musca. The star is surrounded by a circumstellar disk from a distance of 0.2 to 4 AU, and again from 13 AU out to a few hundred AU, with evidence for a protoplanet forming at a distance of around 47 AU.
HD 97048 or CU Chamaeleontis is a Herbig Ae/Be star 603 ly away in the constellation Chamaeleon. It is a variable star embedded in a dust cloud containing a stellar nursery, and is itself surrounded by a dust disk.
HR 8799 is a roughly 30 million-year-old main-sequence star located 133.3 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus. It has roughly 1.5 times the Sun's mass and 4.9 times its luminosity. It is part of a system that also contains a debris disk and at least four massive planets. These planets were the first exoplanets whose orbital motion was confirmed by direct imaging. The star is a Gamma Doradus variable: its luminosity changes because of non-radial pulsations of its surface. The star is also classified as a Lambda Boötis star, which means its surface layers are depleted in iron peak elements. It is the only known star which is simultaneously a Gamma Doradus variable, a Lambda Boötis type, and a Vega-like star.
SU Aurigae is a T Tauri-type variable star in the constellation Auriga. It is located about 500 light-years away in the Taurus-Auriga Star Forming Region. Its apparent magnitude is 9.30, which is dim enough that it cannot be seen with the unaided eye.
The Cloverleaf quasar is a bright, gravitationally lensed quasar. It receives its name because of gravitational lensing spitting the single quasar into four images.
AB Aurigae is a young Herbig Ae star in the Auriga constellation. It is located at a distance of approximately 531 light years from the Sun based on stellar parallax. This pre-main-sequence star has a stellar classification of A0Ve, matching an A-type main-sequence star with emission lines in the spectrum. It has 2.4 times the mass of the Sun and is radiating 38 times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 9,772 K. The radio emission from the system suggests the presence of a thermal jet originating from the star with a velocity of 300 km s−1. This is causing an estimated mass loss of 1.7×10−8 M☉ yr−1.
Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS) is a multi-year survey that used the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii in an effort to directly image extrasolar planets and protoplanetary/debris disks around hundreds of nearby stars. SEEDS is a Japanese-led international project. It consists of some 120 researchers from a number of institutions in Japan, the U.S. and the EU. The survey's headquarters is at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and led by Principal Investigator Motohide Tamura. The goals of the survey are to address the following key issues in the study of extrasolar planets and disks: the detection and census of exoplanets in the regions around solar-mass and massive stars; the evolution of protoplanetary disks and debris disks; and the link between exoplanets and circumstellar disks.
HD 142527 is a binary star system in the constellation of Lupus. The primary star belongs to the Herbig Ae/Be star class, while the companion, discovered in 2012, is a red dwarf star or accreting protoplanet with a projected separation of less than 0.1″. The system is notable for its circumbinary protoplanetary disk and its discovery has helped refine models of planet formation. The orbit of companion is strongly inclined to the circumbinary protoplanetary disk.
A circumstellar disc is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accretion disk of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids, or collision fragments in orbit around a star. Around the youngest stars, they are the reservoirs of material out of which planets may form. Around mature stars, they indicate that planetesimal formation has taken place, and around white dwarfs, they indicate that planetary material survived the whole of stellar evolution. Such a disc can manifest itself in various ways.
GG Tauri, often abbreviated as GG Tau, is a quintuple star system in the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 450 light years away, it is located within the Taurus-Auriga Star Forming Region. The system comprises three stars orbiting each other in a hierarchical triple system, known as GG Tauri A, and another binary star system more distant from the central system, known as GG Tauri B.
PDS 70 is a very young T Tauri star in the constellation Centaurus. Located 370 light-years from Earth, it has a mass of 0.76 M☉ and is approximately 5.4 million years old. The star has a protoplanetary disk containing two nascent exoplanets, named PDS 70b and PDS 70c, which have been directly imaged by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. PDS 70b was the first confirmed protoplanet to be directly imaged.
A circumplanetary disk is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accumulation of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids or collision fragments in orbit around a planet. They are reservoirs of material out of which moons may form. Such a disk can manifest itself in various ways.
RW Aurigae is a young binary system in the constellation of Auriga about 530 light years away, belonging to the Taurus-Auriga association of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. RW Aurigae B was discovered in 1944.
