Speaker: Sara Russell, (NHM)
Meeting format:
- 17.30 Tea, coffee and biscuits
- 18.00 Lecture begins
- 19.00 Short reception
- 20.00 Depart
Abstract
A virtual consensus holds that the solar system - the Sun and the orbiting planets - formed from the collapse of intersellar cloud material under its own gravity about 4.56 billion years ago. This process led initially to a dusty disk forming around the newly formed Sun. The material in the disk quickly accreted into small planetary bodies, called planetesimals, which in turn made up the buidling blocks of planets. In the asteriod belt between Mars and Jupiter, the planet building process was thwarted at an early stage, and small pieces of planetesimals survived. Impacts within the belt can send fragments of these bodies towards the inner solar system, and they make up the majority of meteorites that fall to Earth.
We can learn about the events that happened four and a half billion years agao using both geological and astronomical techniques. From laboratory analysis of meteorites and other extra-terrestrial materials (such as material returned from space missions to a comet) we can learn the environment in which planets formed and the timescales over which they accreted. From astronomical observations and modelling we can compare our solar system to young planetary systems forming today. In the talk I will summarise some of the latest results from both fields of study.
Speaker biography
Professor Sara Russell obtained her PhD from the Open University, on the topic of diamond and silicon carbide in meteorites, in 1993. After postdocs in the USA she came to the Natural History Museum in 1998, where she is now Head of Meteoritics. Her research interests lie in using meteorites to better understand the timescales involved in planetary formation and the conditions prevalent in the protoplanetary disk. She has also participated in many space missions, most recently as Science Team member of the C1XS instrument on the lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
