Stars and Exoplanets: Their Atmospheres and Formation: Star Formation and the Outer Layers of Stars

3 credits · Graduate credit

This course begins with basics of radiative transfer and how this is combined with other governing physics to set the structure of stellar and planetary atmospheres, as well as their emitted spectra. Then the course covers the topics of molecular cloud collapse, resulting in star and protoplanetary disk formation. Disk properties and planet formation are discussed. The last part of the course covers exoplanet detection and characterization, and how this can constrain theories of formation.