Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar

ABSTRACT: This talk will be in two parts. The first will be a general summary of why, when and how planets might be expected to have companions (one or more moons or even a large binary companion). The second part will focus on giant impacts as a natural moon-forming process, the way it may explain our Moon as a late event in planet accretion and the way in which a similar but earlier process for Venus might have led to that planet losing its moon and ending up with slow rotation.