Dr Dimitris Stamatellos
University of Central Lancashire
Wed, 16 September 2020, 18:30 – 20:00 BST (Online Event)
Please register for your free tickets via Eventbrite using the link below.
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Email: njones1@uclan.ac.uk Tel: 01772 893310
Location: The lecture will be given online using Microsoft Teams. You can access the lecture directly via a link that will be emailed to you once you register for the event on Eventbrite.
Abstract
The question about the origin of planets and life has fascinated humankind since ancient times. Until two decades ago we just knew the planets in our Solar System. Since then thousands of planets have been discovered around other stars. To our surprise these “exoplanets” have properties that are very different from those of the planets of our Solar System, thus challenging our understanding of how planets form. Recent observations suggest that planets and planetary systems may form much faster than it has been previously thought. I will discuss the methods for discovering exoplanets and present radiative hydrodynamic computational models of the process of planet formation in protostellar discs around young stars.
Biography
Dr Stamatellos received his BSc in Physics from the University of Athens, Greece, his MSc in Space Physics and Astronomy from Rice University, USA, and in 2004 he was awarded a PhD degree in Astrophysics from Cardiff University, UK. He worked at Cardiff University as a Research Associate until 2013. Since then he is at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, initially as a Guild Research Fellow, and since 2018 as a Reader. He was also a Visiting Fellow at the Theoretical Astronomy and Astrophysics Laboratory, Nagoya University (2014-2016). His work is mainly theoretical and computational, focusing on the study of the earliest stages of star and planet formation. He has published more than 50 refereed articles and is well known for his research on planet formation by gravitational instability. Dr Stamatellos has established collaborations with East Asia countries (China, Japan, S. Korea) and he has been working on the development of Astronomy in Vietnam.