protoplanetary disk

A protoplanetary disk (aka preplanetary disk, either abbreviated PP disk or PPD) is a circumstellar disk, consisting of dust and gas orbiting a young star or protostar such as a T-Tauri star. Radii can be as much as 1000 AU. Such disks are thought to provide the material for planet formation. The disks often develop a flared torus shape due to a combination of heat and radiation pressure from the disk's host star. They can last several million years, evolving through accretion, outflows, photoevaporation, and/or condensation into larger bodies, small to large (planetesimals or planets). Though the lifetime is millions of years, this is short enough that it has been considered as a possible limiting factor regarding the type of planets emerging, e.g., how large a gas planet can grow before the disk gas is gone.

The term proplyd is an abbreviation of protoplanetary disk, sometimes used generally but often specifically for some types of observed objects interpreted as protoplanetary disks: as glowing objects presumed ionized by the host star or another star and/or as shapes seen blocking light from behind. Star-forming regions typically include hot stars that produce ionizing radiation. The disks may be seen in the ultraviolet due to the ionization, or in the infrared due to thermal emission from the disk's dust. Direct imaging of such disks have been carried out by the HST, ALMA, and Subaru Telescope.

The dust in a protoplanetary disk necessarily varies in size (i.e., some of it grows) if solid objects are forming. The dust inherited from the star-forming region is presumed to be up to micron sized. Some information about the location of different sizes can be gleaned from resolving the disk at different wavelengths: grains tend to emit thermal radiation most efficiently at a wavelength on the order of their diameter. Disks generally show fewer larger grains further out which matches the notion that the effects of radiation pressure on dust grains are significant.