Friday, January 8, 2010

How Earth Survived Its Birth: New Simulation Reveals Planet Migration Prevents Plunge Into Sun

New simulations show that variations in temperature can lead to regions of outward and inward migration that safely trap planets on orbits around their sun. (Credit: iStockphoto/Kirill Putchenko)

From Live Science:

Science Daily (Jan. 8, 2010) — For the last 20 years, the best models of planet formation -- or how planets grow from dust in a gas disk -- have contradicted the very existence of Earth. These models assumed locally constant temperatures within a disk, and the planets plunge into the Sun. Now, new simulations from researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Cambridge show that variations in temperature can lead to regions of outward and inward migration that safely trap planets on orbits.

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