Talk:Photoevaporation

Category?
I took the liberty of placing this article into Category:Astronomy. I looked at that category and didn't see a subcategory that seemed appropriate. However, I'm certainly no astronomer, and if there is a subcategory that would be better, please change the category designation here. --Tkynerd 19:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Extension
It would be good if someone could extend this topic - it sounds very interesting, but there is not much information on it. --Adoado

Contradiction?
There seems to be a contradiction of sorts with the article on Extrasolar Planets, which states that "Recent observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope indicate that stars of spectral category O, which are much hotter than our Sun, produce a photo-evaporation effect that inhibits planetary formation." In the article on photo-evaporation proper, it states that "Because of this effect, the presence of massive stars in a star forming region is thought to have a great effect on planet formation from the disk around a young stellar object, though it is not yet clear if this effect decelerates or accelerates it." As the former statement references a published 2006 paper by Linda Vu, whereas the latter statement does not reference a definite source, I am inclined to believe that the former statement should be retained, however, as I am not an astronomer or a scientist, I don't think I am particularly qualified to enter educated opinion or the like. Any takers on this? Midgardmetal (talk) 15:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting sentence on gas and dust ratio
"The disk is composed of gas and dust. The gas, consisting mostly of light elements such as hydrogen and helium, is mainly affected by the effect, causing the ratio between gas and dust to increase."

If gas is more affected than dust, that means it gets blown away more. To increase the gas and dust ratio is to either raise the amount of gas present, or decrease the amount of dust present, right? If the gas is getting blown away faster than the dust, then the gas is decreasing, which would make the ratio: gas particles / dust particles decrease no? My vote is that the word should be decrease. If you agree, change it, since there's no citation either way. (Or find a citation that can back this up).