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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.
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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