Accretion: Building New Worlds will focus on processes of star formation and of circumstellar disks that lead to planetary systems, like our own, with planetary bodies, both silicate-rich and volatile-rich. These planetary bodies and their subsequent evolutions provide the bases for habitable environments and for the origin of life as we know it. The goal of this topical conference is to integrate the disparate stories of planetary accretion, both physical and chemical, into a consistent (although understandably incomplete) whole.
The conference will encompass the formation and aggregation of dust and gas to embryos to planets, and include astronomical observations of circumstellar disks, chemical and physical data from the solar system materials (meteorites, etc.), and simulations of physical and chemical processes of accretion. All relevant data and ideas are welcome.
Invited speakers for the conference, and the topics of their overview talks, will be:
- Dr. Ilsedore Cleeves (Harvard University): Observations of other stellar systems and accretion disks.
- Dr. Steve Desch (Arizona State University): Chondrules, their physical/chemical processing.
- Dr. Paul Estrada (SETI Institute): Growth and drift of nebular particles.
- Dr. Ryan Ogliore (Washington University): Cometary materials, and mixing in the early solar system.
- Dr. Justin Simon (Johnson Space Center): Stable isotopic constraints on early solar system processes.
- Dr. Cristina Thomas (Planetary Science Institute): The current solar system, clues to its past
- Dr. Meenakshi Wadhwa (Arizona State University): Radiochronology and timescales.
- Dr. Kevin Walsh (Southwest Research Institute): Orbital and collisional evolution.
- Dr. Benjamin Weiss (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Magnetism in the early solar system.
Students are encouraged to attend, even if they are not submitting a presentation.
As announced earlier, the conference will have No Registration Fee!
Fill out an Indication of Interest form by May 15, 2017.