Warped and torn circumstellar discs: when planet formation gets messy

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 12th October 2023 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Hybrid

 “Warped and torn circumstellar discs: when planet formation gets messy”.

 

Stars are born with dusty gas discs around them, from which planets form. I will introduce the interesting effects we get when binary/triple stars have a tilted disc and explain the kinds of features we see in the spectacular high resolution images of planet-forming discs, in particular the first observation of the disc tearing phenomenon that I was involved with (which even hit the Daily Mail in 2020).

 

Dr. Alison Young is an incredibly passionate and dedicated astronomer whose curiosity knows no bounds. With a keen interest in unravelling the mysteries of the universe, her primary focus lies in the captivating field of star and planet formation. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the prestigious Institute for Astronomy, situated at the University of Edinburgh. 

Speaker: Dr. Alison Young

Dr Young uses hydrodynamical, radiative transfer and chemical models to develop our understanding of how stars and planets form and of protoplanetary disc structures. She completed her PhD exploring the observational characteristics of the first hydrostatic core in 2019 at the University of Exeter, UK and currently works at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK.