Stars and planets are formed deep inside molecular clouds, but how this actually happens is still being unravelled. This course will provide a broad overview of our current theoretical and observational understanding of the physical processes involved in star- and planet formation. The course consists of two parts. First, the cloud collapse leading to protostars with dense envelopes, circumstellar accretion disks and outflows is discussed. Second, the evolution of protoplanetary disks and the scenarios for the formation of giant and terrestrial planets are presented. Kuiper Belt Objects, comets and meteorites each tell their own story about the physical processes that took place in our own early Solar System. In contrast, exo-planetary systems show us how other protoplanetary systems evolved differently than our own. We will discuss recent observational work with ALMA and VLT, past and future missions to comets and asteroids, and exciting first results from the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope.
The detailed outline is:
Dense molecular clouds
Cloud collapse and spectral energy distributions
Bipolar outflows
Pre-main sequence stars
High-mass star formation
Circumstellar disks
Disk evolution and grain growth
Formation of planets
Kuiper-Belt objects and structure of debris disks
Meteorites & primitive solar system material
Exoplanets as probes of planet formation processes
Outcome:
The student will gain up-to-date insight into one of the fastest growing research areas in astronomy. The course will provide sufficient background to be able to follow the current literature on star- and planet formation and to do research in this field or in a neighboring field (e.g., star formation in external galaxies or on cosmological scales).
