[X] My Assistant

[ljk4-1]

Paper: astro-ph/0601278
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 23:44:50 GMT (190kb)

Title: On the Formation of Gas Giant Planets on Wide Orbits

Authors: Alan P. Boss

Comments: 13 pages, 4 figures. in press, ApJ Letters
\\
A new suite of three dimensional radiative, gravitational hydrodynamical
models is used to show that gas giant planets are unlikely to form by the disk
instability mechanism at distances of ~100 AU to ~200 AU from young stars. A
similar result seems to hold for the core accretion mechanism. These results
appear to be consistent with the paucity of detections of gas giant planets on
wide orbits by infrared imaging surveys, and also imply that if the object
orbiting GQ Lupus is a gas giant planet, it most likely did not form at a
separation of ~100 AU. Instead, a wide planet around GQ Lup must have undergone
a close encounter with a third body that tossed the planet outward to its
present distance from its protostar. If it exists, the third body may be
detectable by NASA's Space Interferometry Mission.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601278 , 190kb)

[dvandorn]

Makes it obvious why they're replacing the Shuttle with an Apollo-clone-on-steroids to be shoved into LEO on a stick.

-the other Doug