Over the past 25 years, scientists have discovered more than 4,000 planets outside our solar system. From relatively
"When planets are formed from socalled a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust, the driving mechanism may be gravitational instability. In this process, the dust and gas in the disk clump together under the influence of gravity and form dense spiral structures. These then become planetary building blocks and ultimately planets.”
Lucio Mayer, professor of computational astrophysics at the University of Zurich and member of NCCR PlanetS
The scale at which this process takes place is verylarge - it covers the entire protoplanetary disk. But at shorter distances - on the scale of individual planets - a different force prevails: the magnetic fields that develop near the planets. They excite the gas and dust of the disk and thus influence the formation of planets. To get a complete picture of this process, it is important not only to model the large-scale spiral structure in the disk. Small-scale magnetic fields around the growing planetary building blocks should also be included.
However, differences in the scale and nature of gravity andmagnetism make the two forces a very difficult task to integrate into the same model of planetary formation. So far, computer simulations, which reflected well the action of one force, usually worked poorly with the other. To succeed, the team developed a new modeling technique. This required knowledge in various fields: first, they required a deep theoretical understanding of gravity and magnetism. The researchers then had to find a way to translate understanding into code that could efficiently calculate these opposing forces in unison. Finally, due to the sheer amount of computation required, a powerful computer was required.
With this model, scientists were able toshow that magnetic fields prevent growing planets from continuing to accumulate mass beyond a certain point. As a result, giant planets become more rare, and planets of intermediate masses - much more frequent.
These results are only the first step, but they are clearshow the importance of taking into account more physical processes when simulating planetary formation. This study is helping to understand the potential pathways for the formation of intermediate mass planets, which are very common in our galaxy. It also helps us understand protoplanetary disks in general.
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