Most parents have had that uncomfortable conversation with their children at some point. Mommy, Daddy, where do stars come from? You hem and haw, mumble a few words about angular momentum and primordial hydrogen and then cleverly change the subject. ...

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Today Pamela was saying how planets form. She said that the large gas giants form far away from the star (as in our solar system) and that the rocky planets form close to the star. If I am not mistaken, are there not massive gas giant planets inside the equivalent of mercury's orbit and if so how are they explained?

Thank you for the show. I listen while I am at work. I do Alzheimer’s research at the University of Rochester but I have always had a love for astronomy. The only reason I did not decide to do astronomy as a major in college was there was far too much math involved. Keep up the great work!

Great timing on this episode. We just finished looking at the Orion and several open clusters this weekend. I use to think open cluster were boring because they seemed like just a bunch of stars, but now I know what to look for and what that tells me. Thanks!

But what's the story behind globular clusters. Are they similar, different, or somewhere in between open clusters?

Globular clusters have a lot more old stars, and they do not loose stars as much by escaping. Also they swarm around the center of the galaxy in a halo.

Don't they both obey the "virial theorem"?

It is my understanding that the hot Jupiters form further out, just like in our Solar system, but then they move inward. Pamela and Fraser have discussed this before in Astronomy Cast.

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"For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky"

Everyone knows baby stars are delivered by The Stork Nebula.

*duh!* ;-p

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There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the Cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while...in that crystal thought time in Mexico. ~Donovan

Where do baby stars come from.....well, you see this mama star and this daddy star.....

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info