Comment Re:The article isn't great for the lay-person (Score 1) 114
I haven't the foggiest idea how a temperature gradient can cause matter to climb out of a gravity well.
Thermophoresis causes particles in a fluid to move because of a temperature gradient. The similarity parameters (Reynolds / Mach / Knudsen) for a planetesimal in an accretion disk are probably similar to the aerosal particles in air that the wiki article talks about.