Testing the Solar Nebula Theory

Test I: Disks Around Other Stars

• disks imaged in Orion's great Nebula: gallery, face-on, edge-on
• gallery of protoplanetary systems in the Carina nebula
• dusty disk in beta Pictoris, with warped shape and now known to have a giant planet
• Fomalhaut system
• other images of circumstellar disks here and here

Test II: Exoplanets

• Star wobble (reflex motion)
  • theory: Sun wobble, signature in spectrum, velocity pattern, you pick the orbit
  • observation: measured velocities: circular, eccentric, and really eccentric orbits
• Eclipsing planets: transits observed
• A revolution in progress: NASA Kepler
  • search fields, target region in Milky Way
  • 1200 planet candidates announced!
  • candiate sky locations mapped
  • six-planet system
  • results visualized
  • analysis of first four months' data
• infrared image of three planet system
• Results to date
  
  • plotted; and tabulated
  • trends vs heavy element ("metal") content
  • ditribution of observed masses and orbits and the "brown dwarf desert"
• Implications
  planet swallowing? confirmed!