Related papers: New Indivisible Geoscience Paradigm
Carbonaceous asteroids represent the principal source of water in the inner Solar System and might correspond to the main contributors for the delivery of water to Earth. Hydrogen isotopes in water-bearing primitive meteorites, e.g.…
Nucleosynthetic Fe isotopic anomalies in meteorites may be used to reconstruct the early dynamical evolution of the solar system and to identify the origin and nature of the material that built planets. Using high-precision iron isotopic…
The Moon-forming giant impact extensively melts and partially vaporizes the silicate Earth and delivers a substantial mass of metal to Earth's core. Subsequent evolution of the magma ocean and overlying atmosphere has been described by…
Recent spacecraft observations exploring solar system properties impact standard paradigms of the formation of stars, planets and comets. We stress the unexpected cloud of microscopic dust resulting from the DEEP IMPACT mission, and the…
Not only do the sampled terrestrial worlds (Earth, Mars, and asteroid 4 Vesta) differ in their mass-independent (nucleosynthetic) isotopic compositions of many elements (e.g. $\varepsilon^{48}$Ca, $\varepsilon^{50}$Ti, $\varepsilon^{54}$Cr,…
We describe a coagulation model that leads to the rapid formation of super-Earths and the cores of gas giant planets. Interaction of collision fragments with the gaseous disk is the crucial element of this model. The gas entrains small…
Terrestrial planets are thought to be the result of a vast number of gravitational interactions and collisions between smaller bodies. We use numerical simulations to show that practically identical initial conditions result in a wide array…
Earth's volatile elements (H, C, and N) are essential to maintaining habitable conditions for metazoans and simpler life forms. However, identifying the sources (comets, meteorites, and trapped nebular gas) that supplied volatiles to Earth…
Understanding the origin of comets requires knowledge of how the Solar System formed from a cloud of dust and gas 4.567 Gyr ago. Here, a review is presented of how the remnants of this formation process, meteorites and to a lesser extent…
Magma ocean crystallisation sets up the early structure and long-term evolution of terrestrial planets. Recent seismic evidence signals the presence of a silicate layer at the base of Mars' mantle. Magma-ocean crystallisation and subsequent…
Earth's inner core consists of mainly iron with a bit of light elements. Understanding of its structure and related physical properties has been elusive for both experiment and theory due to its required extremely high pressure and…
Radioisotopic ages for meteorites and their components provide constraints on the evolution of small bodies: timescales of accretion, thermal and aqueous metamorphism, differentiation, cooling and impact metamorphism. Realising that the…
Pebble accretion provides new insights into Earth's building blocks and early protoplanetary disk conditions. Here, we show that mixtures of chondritic components: metal grains, chondrules, calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs), and…
The terrestrial planets formed by accretion of asteroid-like objects within the inner solar system's protoplanetary disk. Previous works have found that forming a small-mass Mars requires the disk to contain little mass beyond ~1.5 au…
Anhydrous pyroxene-rich interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) have been proposed as surface analogs for about two-thirds of all C-complex asteroids. However, this suggestion appears to be inconsistent with the presence of hydrated silicates…
Water vapour atmospheres with content equivalent to the Earth's oceans, resulting from impacts or a high insolation, were found to yield a surface magma ocean. This was, however, a consequence of assuming a fully convective structure. Here…
Water condensed as ice beyond the water snowline, the location in the Sun's natal gaseous disk where temperatures were below 170 K. As the disk evolved and cooled, the snowline moved inwards. A low temperature in the terrestrial…
Roughly 40% of the Earth's total heat flow is powered by radioactive decays in the crust and mantle. Geo-neutrinos produced by these decays provide important clues about the origin, formation and thermal evolution of our planet, as well as…
The origin of Mercury's anomalous core and low FeO surface mineralogy are outstanding questions in planetary science. Mercury's composition may result from cosmochemical controls on the precursor solids that accreted to form Mercury. High…
Despite being all roughly of solar composition, primitive meteorites (chondrites) present a diversity in their chemical, isotopic and petrographic properties, and in particular a first-order dichotomy between carbonaceous and…