Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2011-11-05
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
14 pages, 3 figures. Invited contribution to the European Review, the Interdisciplinary Journal of the Humanities and Sciences
Scientific paper
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own solar system, with its planets, planetary satellites, asteroids, and comets. The surprising diversity of exoplanets, of which more than 500 have already been discovered, has required new models to explain their formation and evolution. In turn, these models explain, rather naturally, a number of important features of our own solar system, amongst them the masses and orbits of the terrestrial and gas giant planets, the presence and distribution of asteroids and comets, the origin and impact cratering of the Moon, and the existence of water on Earth.
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