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How do planets form in Disks?

Students from Highams Park School with Orbyts fellow Luke Keyte
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Planets are born in the disks of gas and dust surrounding young stars. Over the past decade, observations from the Atacama Large (sub)Millimetre Array (ALMA) have allowed us to probe planet-forming environments in incredible detail, revealing fascinating physical structures such as gaps, rings, and spirals. In this project, we use real observations from ALMA to compare the gas and dust distributions in five protoplanetary disks. We aim to link the physical and chemical diversity observed in disks, to that seen in exoplanetary atmospheres. Drawing links between the composition of disks and planets will be crucial in developing models that can meaningfully predict planetary formation.

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