Bridging It: Connecting Observations and Models of (Exo)planets and their Formation

from 1st to 4th September 2026

at MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany

Organised by the MPIA and COST Action CA22133 PLANETS

The COST Action CA22133, The Birth of Solar Systems (PLANETS), is delighted to announce a joint meeting of:

Working Group 2: “Advancing Planet Formation Models”

and

Working Group 3: “Planet Formation Theory Confronts Observations”

Join us from September 1st (Tuesday) to 4th (Friday) 2026, at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), located in the Heidelberg region of Germany.

This meeting will focus on topics relating to discs and their evolution, planet formation and exoplanetary systems and their atmospheres.

This meeting will include a satellite discussion regarding the activities of Working Group 7: "Towards the First Database on Planet-Forming Disks".

This meeting, organised by the EU COST Action PLANETS, aims to bring together communities in modelling and observations of exoplanets, Solar System planets and planet formation. The goal is to reconcile the latest generation of models in these sub-fields with the unprecedented observational constraints from state-of-the-art observing facilities such as ALMA, NOEMA, JWST, VLT, etc. On the one hand, these new observational constraints on the disk gas and dust substructures, gas kinematics, their dust properties and chemical inventories, as well as properties and populations studies of planets and their atmospheres, call for refining the current theoretical models of planets and their formation. On the other hand, the new (magneto-)hydrodynamic models of gas and dust dynamics, disk evolution and formation of planets and their atmospheres, as well as chemical models of gas and ice evolution, are delivering key diagnostics that can be confronted with observations across the stages of planet formation - from disks to formed planets and their atmospheres. To foster the exchange of ideas and knowledge among theorists and observers across these fields, this meeting is scheduled to provide ample time for (informal) discussions, as well as an overview of the state of the art in the respective topics.