{"id":6529,"date":"2013-06-07T16:30:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T23:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/?p=6529"},"modified":"2021-01-18T01:36:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T09:36:36","slug":"postdoc-hilke-schlichting-simulates-planet-formation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/?p=6529","title":{"rendered":"Postdoc Hilke Schlichting simulates planet formation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hubble postdoctoral fellow and soon-to-be Assistant Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hilke Schlichting<\/a> is no stranger to traveling long distances.\u00a0 On a daily basis, Schlichting ventures three-to-five billion miles from Earth to the Kuiper Belt, a primordial ring of icy bodies in the outer reaches of our solar system.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m interested in all aspects of planet formation,\u201d said Schlichting.\u00a0 \u201cOur solar system provides an opportunity to study it in a way that we cannot study elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Schlichting does all her space traveling from the comfort of her office at UCLA.\u00a0 Using data from the nearly 1500 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) scientists have identified since 1992, Schlichting studies size distribution, especially for objects larger than 100 km across.\u00a0 Objects of this size, including the well-known dwarf planet, Pluto, are important because \u201cplanet formation never proceeded to completion for these bodies,\u201d said Schlichting. \u201cIt\u2019s an ideal laboratory for testing planet formation theories.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one knows exactly how planets form.\u00a0 \u201cWe know there is a gaseous disk that surrounds a star or stars in the beginning,\u201d said Schlichting, \u201cbut we can\u2019t observe the early stages of formation because the gas blocks our view.\u201d To predict exactly what happens in the early stages of planet formation, Schlichting creates models that try to reproduce the distribution of objects observed in the Kuiper Belt.\u00a0 From her models she has learned that planet formation goes through a phase called \u201crunaway growth,\u201d a time when a relatively small fraction of the total mass coalesces very quickly into large objects.\u00a0 \u201cThe model matches the large KBOs, which are frozen in the runaway growth phase,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Schlichting has also conducted research to identify very small objects in the Kuiper Belt. \u201cThe objects are too small to reflect much sunlight back to Earth,\u201d said Schlichting.\u00a0 Instead, she observes a large number of background stars in hopes that a small object will pass in front of one of the stars, thereby blocking out some of the starlight.\u00a0 Seeing these ephemeral objects is rare, and Schlichting has detected only two from an immense data set that was collected by Hubble Space Telescope over a period of more than 16 years.<\/p>\n

In July 2013, Schlichting, her husband, and her Alaskan malamute, Amir, will leave sunny California to brave the shores of the Atlantic in Boston, Massachusetts.\u00a0 \u201cAmir is such a California dog,\u201d Schlichting said. \u201cHe won\u2019t even go outside if it\u2019s raining.\u201d\u00a0 Regardless of 100-pound Amir\u2019s reluctance to brave the elements, Schlichting looks forward to continuing to solve the mysteries of planetary formation at her new institute. \u201cI\u2019ve learned many things from UCLA\u2019s Department of Earth & Space Sciences that I never would have learned in an astrophysics department.\u00a0 It has been a very stimulating place,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cMoving to Boston will be quite a challenge, hopefully in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch a video profile of Hilke here<\/a>.\u00a0 Learn more about her research here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hubble postdoctoral fellow and soon-to-be Assistant Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hilke Schlichting is no stranger to traveling long distances.\u00a0 On a daily basis, Schlichting ventures three-to-five billion miles from Earth to the Kuiper Belt, a primordial ring of icy bodies in the outer reaches of our solar system.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m interested in all aspects … <\/p>\n

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