While the very idea of a flat planet millions of years after its formation is patently ridiculous, recent modelling shows that during the protostar phase – where material from a nebula is drawn around a hydrostatic core into an accretion disc – it is likely that many of of the protoplanets which form inside a fragmentary protostar accretion disc take on a strongly oblate spheroid shape, rather than a spherical one. This according to [Adam Fenton] and [Dimitris Stamatellos], who ran half a million CPU hours worth of simulation time at the UK’s DiRAC HPC facility, per the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) press release.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/02/20/new-modelling-shows-that-flat-protoplanets-might-be-a-thing/