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The Origin of Sunlike Stars and Planetary Systems Frank H. Shu National Tsing Hua University Hsinchu, Taiwan Abstract In this talk I will review the history of scientific ideas concerning the origin of the solar system, and I will update the topic from the perspective of modern theories and observations of the formation of stars and planetary systems. A major surprise from investigations of the past two decades is the realization that the birth processes of stars and planets are much more violent and dynamic than have been previously imagined. Swirling disks of gas and dust condense into stars, but they may also bring an inspiral and early demise of many nascent planets. In their interactions with the strongly magnetized central stars, such disks may also generate powerful jets of gas that spew a rain of molten rock throughout interplanetary space, which later become incorporated as the chondrules of chondritic meteorites. As a result of this activity, much of whose consequences are unpredictable, the probability that most stars contain planetary systems has improved, but the probability that such systems will resemble our own solar system has worsened. The diversity of possible outcomes challenges future astronomical plans to detect and characterize habitable earthlike planets orbiting the closest thousand stars. |