[Baps] Monday planetary talk "On the Origin of Planetary Spins & the Formation of Kuiper Belt"

[Sarah Stewart-Mukhopadhyay]

CfA SSP talk http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/events/calendar/latest.html

 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

  12 noon: [22]Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division Seminar.
  "On the Origin of Planetary Spins & the Formation of Kuiper Belt
  Binaries," Dr. Hilke Schlichting, California Institute of Technology.
  Pratt Conference Room.

  Abstract: The accretion of planetesimals is usually treated as
  collisionless. The assumption is that collisions among the
  planetesimals can be neglected while they are within the proto-planets
  sphere of gravitational influence. In the first part of my talk, I
  will show that if planetesimals are of order of a meter in size or
  smaller, then they are likely to collide within the proto-planet's
  sphere of gravitational influence (semi-collisional accretion),
  creating a prograde accretion disk around the proto-planet. Accounting
  for the subsequent stages in terrestrial planet formation, this
  semi-collisional accretion biases the final spin of terrestrial
  planets toward prograde rotation. I will suggest that in our Solar
  system, semi-collisional accretion gave rise to the preference for
  prograde rotation observed in the terrestrial planets and perhaps the
  largest asteroids. The second part of my talk will be concerned with
  the binaries in the Kuiper belt. I will discuss the various proposed
  binary formation scenarios and highlight which mechanism will dominate
  the binary formation for a given velocity regime. Finally, I will show
  that the sense of the binary orbit provides a powerful tool for
  discriminating between the different binary formation scenarios
  observationally.

-- 
Sarah T. Stewart-Mukhopadhyay
Asst. Professor of Planetary Science
Dept. of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
Office 617.496.6462 Lab 617.496.5782 Fax 617.384.8249
sstewart at eps.harvard.edu
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~planets/sstewart/

Assistant:Marcie Steeves, steeves at eps.harvard.edu, 617-495-2350
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