Wednesday, June 16, 2021 (Seminar)

17:00 - 18:00

Tim Lichtenberg will present: "Bifurcation of planetary building blocks during Solar System formation"

Abstract: Geochemical analyses of meteoritic materials and astronomical observations of extrasolar circumstellar disks provide evidence for a fragmented planet formation process. In this talk I will discuss how the migration of the water snow line during disk buildup can generate two distinct bursts of planetesimal formation that sample different source regions of interstellar materials. These planetesimal populations evolve in divergent geophysical modes and develop distinct core formation chronology and volatile contents, which offers a physical explanation for the observed compositional fractionation and isotopic dichotomy of the Solar System.