Guest lecture: Dr. Sarah Morrison, 'Unearthing the formation histories of inner planets'

Planets form in a disk around their parent star, and their orbits can change over time due to exchanging angular momentum with this disk and through gravitational interactions with other planets. This likely occurred to some extent in our Solar System, but the degree to which these processes shaped the inner planets of our Solar system and in exoplanet systems to become the systems we observe today is still an ongoing area of research.

In this talk, Dr. Sarah Morrison, an assistant professor in the Physics, Astronomy, and Materials Science Department at Missouri State University, will discuss the plausible formation scenarios that produce the observed characteristics of the most common types of inner planets, super-Earths, and mini-Neptunes. From numerical simulations of planetary embryos colliding and merging in their residual protoplanetary disks, Dr. Morrison will show what conditions during that phase of planet formation are conducive to forming planet populations with observationally consistent orbit and mass/size distributions. Dr. Morrison will also discuss her path in planetary science and astrophysics and different pathways in professional preparation for careers in planetary sciences and astrophysics.

Presented by the Physics, Engineering, and Astronomy Department.