Planet Formation

TL;DR

This review discusses the diversity of exoplanets, summarizes recent progress in understanding planet formation, and highlights key open questions and future challenges in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge, identifies unresolved issues, and outlines future research directions in planet formation theory.

Findings

Diverse planetary systems observed with varying sizes and compositions

Significant progress made in observational and theoretical understanding

Many fundamental questions about planet formation remain open

Abstract

Our galaxy is full with planets. We now know that planets and planetary systems are diverse and come with different sizes, masses and compositions, as well as various orbital architectures. Although there has been great progress in understanding planet formation in the last couple of decades, both observationally and theoretically, several fundamental questions remain unsolved. This might not be surprising given the complexity of the process that includes various physical and chemical processes, and spans huge ranges of length-scales, masses, and timescales. In addition, planet formation cannot be directly observed but has to be inferred by gluing together different pieces of information into one consistent picture. "How do planets form?" remains a fundamental question in modern astrophysics. In this review we list some of the key open questions in planet formation theory as well as the challenges and upcoming opportunities.