2024 - Dr. Hang Yu

Two large red swirls leaving a dot. A zoom in on the dot shows it's very bright.

The Sun is not alone in hosting planets around it. Extrasolar planets have been discovered in large numbers, including some bizarre ones known as “hot Jupiters”: a Jupiter-like giant planet orbiting around its host star with an orbital period as short as a few days. This project uses first-principles hydrodynamical modeling to study the formation theory of hot Jupiters in the extrasolar world. It improves the understanding of the solar system’s place in the Universe.