“Settling Instability” in Planet Formation


One of the new instabilities discovered is the “settling instability” which occurs as dust settles into a proto-planetary disk before even reaching the midplane. Here see the dust-to-gas ratio (colors, on a log scale) in just the very first few dynamical times as dust begins to settle. It hasn’t even reached the midplane and order-of-magnitude enhancements appear, with secondary structures rapidly forming.

© Philip Hopkins 2015