From grains to planets (Free Astronomy Public Lectures)

Presented by Catarina Ubach and Francesco Pignatale on 25th May 2012.Solar System bodies such as planets, meteorites and comets are all created from small grains during the protoplanetary disk phase. The chemical composition of all these objects is intrinsically related to the chemistry of gas and grains in the parent disk. In the first part of the lecture we will explore the evidence we have to understand grain growth in discs. In the second part of the lecture we will go through the chemistry of discs and how thermodynamics can help us to understand the formation of our Solar System and the bulk composition of exoplanets orbiting stars different from our Sun.