Program: GS-2008A-Q-39

Despite the explosion of extrasolar planet discoveries, substantial controversy remains over how these planets form and arrive at their final orbits. The formation timescale may be a million years or less (via gravitational instabilities in a disk), or the process may take several Myr (via core accretion). We will use Gemini/Phoenix to put strong observational constraints on these models by confirming a several Jupiter mass companion orbiting the $\sim 1$ Myr old pre-main sequence star DN Tau.