Testing the Solar Nebula Theory

Test I: Disks Around Other Stars

• disks imaged in Orion's great Nebula: gallery, face-on, edge-on
• the ALMA revolution: dusty disks resolved!
  • HL Tauri
  • TW Hydrae
  • HD 163296: dust and gas, gaps in both!
  • more disks here, here, here, and here
  • multiple star and disk systems here, here
  , and here
• 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: ring
• other images of circumstellar disks here and here

Test II: Exoplanets

• Eclipsing planets: transits observed
• A revolution in progress: NASA Kepler
  • search fields and zoom
  • transit examples
  • results over time and visualized
• 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
• direct imaging: here
• 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!