"The cradle of the Sun: was our Solar System born in a star cluster?"
Guest Speaker
Thursday, 18th February 2016 (19:45 - 22:00)
Venue: swmcmeet
Most stars are born with tens to millions of other stars in densely populated clusters. These are extremely hostile, violent environments for planets to form, and then for life to emerge and develop. Given that life did emerge in our Solar System, the obvious question to ask is: "Was our Sun lucky in escaping from it's birthplace unscathed by interactions with its siblings?" In this talk Richard will describe the evidence for the Sun being born in a cluster, and how it may have managed to survive its hostile birthplace.