Chairman : Françoise Combes
The discovery of extrasolar planets has shown that planetary systems can have very diverse structures. Clearly, there is a wide variety of possible formation and evolution histories. It therefore becomes important to reconstruct, as far as possible, the specific history that led to the formation of the solar system, and to understand the role of contingency in the formation of the Earth, the only known case of an inhabited planet. Curiously, the most valuable information on the origin and evolution of our system comes not from planets, but from small bodies such as asteroids and comets. Meteorites in particular, which are fragments of asteroids, can be studied in great detail in laboratories. Meteorites and comets tell us about the evolution of the circumsolar disk that gave birth to our planetary system, about the chronology of dust accretion towards larger and larger bodies, and about the origin of the matter incorporated into our planet.
Alessandro Morbidelli obtained his master's degree in physics in 1988 from the University of Milan and his doctorate in mathematics in 1991 from the University of Namur. CNRS research director at the Lagrange Laboratory of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, he is involved in the dynamics of planetary systems, as well as their formation and evolution. In particular, he strives to reconstruct the history of the solar system from its earliest phases. He is currently Chairman of the CNES Solar System theme group, Director of the PEPR project " Origins : from planets to life " and editor of the planetology journal Icarus. He is an associate member of the French Academy of Sciences.
