The speaker will be William F. McDonough, Professor, Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, and the title of his talk is “Solar system initiation and its early, rapid growth and differentiation of planets.” Olin Hall 305, 4:30 PM

A team of physicists have attempted to recreate the internal conditions of a ‘super-Earth’ planet in a lab, by shooting laser beams at iron samples. Super-Earths are a type of exoplanet. They have a higher mass than Earth, but are not as massive as Uranus and Neptune. The giants are about 15 and 17 times the mass of Earth.

Using high-powered laser beams, researchers have simulated conditions inside a planet three times as large as Earth.