A fossil record for exoolanets

摘要

The planets that have been discovered beyond our Solar System - exoplanets - are extremely diverse. As the field of exoplanetary research has matured, systems containing multiple planets have been detected and classified, and our detection sensitivity has extended to planets with lower masses and longer orbital periods. Planet formation is highly sensitive to the properties of the accretion disks of gas around the protostars, and the masses and lifetimes of these disks are known to vary dramatically from system to system.