Planetary Formation: Lessons Learned from the Solar System and the Extrasolar Planets

Abstract

Our understanding of planetary formation as derived from the Solar System, for decades the only example of a planetary system we knew, has been challenged over the last twenty years by the rich diversity of discovered extrasolar planets. The Solar System, however, still represent a unique source of detailed information on the processes shaping the formation and subsequent evolution of planets, both individually and as a whole. Over the last ten years, in particular, the study of the geochronology of meteorites supplied new and highly detailed data on the relative timescales of formation and geophysical evolution of the different classes of planetary bodies. At the same time, new theoretical works on the formation and early dynamical evolution of the giant planets helped bridging the gap between the story told by the Solar System and that coming from the extrasolar planets. This talk will provide a review of these recent advancements and discuss how they affected our understanding of the earliest and more mysterious phases of the life of planetary systems.