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The formation of exoplanets
Over the last few decades astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun – known as exoplanets. Many of these exoplanets are quite unlike anything we see in our Solar System. These include ‘hot Jupiters’ orbiting very close to their parent star and rocky ‘super Earths’ many times larger than our home planet. In this free course, The formation of exoplanets, you will learn about the challenges connected with efforts to reconcile the observed exoplanet population with current theories on how planets form. The two main theories for this, namely the core-accretion scenario and the disc-instability scenario, will be explored mathematically.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course S384 Astrophysics of stars and exoplanets.
This content forms part of the Dangoor Education collection, the educational arm of The Exilarch's Foundation.
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
- use mathematical models to calculate properties of protoplanetary discs
- understand the core-accretion scenario for the growth of planetary cores from smaller components
- understand the disc-instability scenario for the formation of planets from a circumstellar disc
- describe how planets migrate and interact after forming
- appreciate how planet formation models can explain the observed exoplanet population.
First Published: 19/12/2024
Updated: 19/12/2024
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Having just completed the level 2 course S284 (Astronomy) with the OU, I found the hike in mathematics complexity for this level 3 course a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. (I took a first degree in engineering several decades ago).
‘Exoplanets’ also required a lot more time than the allotted 6 hours, but with appropriate background research, YouTube tutorials (especially in regard to differentiation) and then quizzing Chat GPT on (apparent) conceptual conflicts, I still found it ‘do-able’.
New ideas (e.g. aspect ratios, disk instability, Toomre criterion, radial drift etc.) seemed to come along with much more rapidity than they did in S284 and without the same level of introduction and preparation. Additionally, intermediate steps in manipulating mathematical equations were often skipped leaving the student to ‘join the dots’. (This brevity may of course simply reflect the expectation for a higher level of mathematical ability on a level 3 course)!
It is probably fair to say that while S284 included a significant numeracy component, the OpenLearn level 3 course is squarely built on mathematics.
The test questions at the end (and the associated explanation of the answers) was particularly helpful both in seeing how the various concepts introduced throughout the course could be utilised and manipulated, but also in proving learning and identifying errors.
The ‘Formation of Exoplanets’ affords the student the chance to grapple with substantive astronomical ideas in a challenging, numerate way.
As a taster, has more than whetted my appetite for the full Level 3 course.