Planets form in protoplanetary discs surrounding newly formed stars, where dust
grains clump and form km-sized planetesimals. As the dust grains start to grow to mm-cm
sized pebbles, they drift inwards very rapidly due to the gas drag within the disc. As the
pebbles drift inwards towards the hotter disc regions, they can evaporate and enrich the
inner disc with their vapor to largely...
Exoplanetary demographic statistics shows that super-Earths are the most
abundant exoplanets, orbiting approximately every other solar-like star. In our own solar system, however, the inner terrestrial planets did not grow beyond Earth in mass. A possible explanation could be provided by the presence of gas giants in our own system, that might have influenced the growth of the inner...
Understanding and testing possible formation mechanisms is crucial to
understanding the history of planetary systems. While observationally there is a prevalence of evenly sized and spaced systems (“peas-in-a-pod” - Weiss et. al 2018), there is also an observational trend between the presence of a Cold Jupiter and inner system non-uniformity (He et. al 2023). Recent work explored in Best et....
The study of Gyr-old cold gas giants is on the verge of a revolution: the forthcoming Gaia data releases will precipitate their detection, and, thanks to the ESA/ARIEL space mission, the number of such Jupiter-like planets with well-characterized atmospheric composition will also skyrocket in the years to come. Interpreting the results of these forefront campaigns requires a significant leap...
