München 2009 – scientific programme

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SYKO: Komplexität

SYKO 1: Complexity

SYKO 1.3: Plenary Talk

Monday, March 9, 2009, 14:10–14:45, A140

Structure Formation in Astrophysics - From Cosmology to Planets — •Wolfgang Hillebrandt — MPI für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85748 Garching

Understanding the formation (and evolution) of objects in the Universe, on vastly different length and mass scales, from galaxies to stars and planets, is a major issue in modern astrophysics, and one of the most exciting challenges of twenty-first century astronomy. Even though they are characterized by different scales, the formation of planets, stars and galaxies share many common physical processes and are rooted in the same underlying domains of physics. Similarly, non-linear growth of small-scale perturbations can lead to violent processes such as stellar explosions. Today, many of these questions are addressed by numerical simulations on supercomputers. A status report will be given in this talk.