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Old 29-05-2010, 03:48 PM
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renormalised (Carl)
No More Infinities

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Join Date: Apr 2008
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There are many factors which determine where and whether a planet will form in the accretion disk around a young star. It's a matter of composition of the disk, the density of the materials, the dynamics of the particles within the disks, their size, the temperatures within the disk and how the materials separate out due to the temps, etc etc etc.

If it did form close in, the 55Cancri e could be nothing more than a huge chunk of metal surrounded by a dense, but thinnish, atmosphere of hydrogen and helium and whatever else. When I mean thinnish, probably only 1000km or less in thickness. In so close, the only materials which could survive would be things such as iron, nickel etc. Silicates would have a hard time forming...the planet would have to be at least 1/2 the distance to Mercury out from its star to have the chance to form stable silicates.
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