Question: What have you discovered that is new?

Phil Sutton answered on 8 Mar 2017:

Well I have been working on Saturn’s rings and moon formation. When we look at planet formation the standard core accretion theory takes longer than the age of the solar system to form the planets we have. Gravity alone can not bring together enough material fast enough to create the planets. So….

There has been a theory that if we had a vortex (imagine a whirlpool in water) in the planet forming disk around the Sun (the planets form in a disk of dust and gas that orbits the young Sun), then this would collect up material much faster. The planets then form in the correct time frame. I studied Saturn’s rings and how moons might form, we can use it as a scaled down version of the solar system. We showed that turbulence and vortices in the ring can indeed speed up the process that creates moons and planets.