Related papers: Impact cratering on Mercury: consequences for the …
The Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt are relics from the formation of our solar system. Understanding the size and spin distribution of the two belts is crucial for a deeper understanding of the formation of our solar system and the…
We study the impactor flux and cratering on Ceres and Vesta caused by the collisional and dynamical evolution of the asteroid Main Belt. We develop a statistical code based on a well-tested model for the simultaneous evolution of the Main…
The impact flux over the last 3 Ga in the inner Solar System is commonly assumed to be constant through time. However, asteroid break-up events in the main belt may have been responsible for cratering spikes over the last ~2 Ga on the…
The planet Mercury is locked in a spin-orbit resonance where it rotates three times about its spin axis for every two orbits about the Sun. The current explanation for this unique state assumes that the initial rotation of this planet was…
The rotation of Mercury is presently captured in a 3/2 spin-orbit resonance with the orbital mean motion. The capture mechanism is well understood as the result of tidal interactions with the Sun combined with planetary perturbations.…
The inner solar system's modern orbital architecture provides inferences into the epoch of terrestrial planet formation; a ~100 Myr time period of planet growth via collisions with planetesimals and other proto-planets. While classic…
The origin of Mercury's high iron-to-rock ratio is still unknown. In this work we investigate Mercury's formation via giant impacts and consider the possibilities of a single giant impact, a hit-and-run, and multiple collisions in one…
The size distribution of small asteroids in the Main Belt is assumed to be determined by an equilibrium between the creation of new bodies out of the impact debris of larger asteroids and the destruction of small asteroids by collisions…
New insights into the history of the inner solar system are derived from the impact cratering record of the Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury, and from the size distributions of asteroid populations. Old craters from a unique period of heavy…
The origin of Mercury still remains poorly understood compared to the other rocky planets of the Solar System. One of the most relevant constraints that any formation model has to fulfill refers to its internal structure, with a predominant…
The present obliquity of Mercury is very low (less than 0.1 degree), which led previous studies to always adopt a nearly zero obliquity during the planet's past evolution. However, the initial orientation of Mercury's rotation axis is…
The impact cratering record of the Moon and the terrestrial planets provides important clues about the formation and evolution of the Solar System. Especially intriguing is the epoch 3.8-3.9 Gyr ago (Ga), known as the Late Heavy Bombardment…
Late accretion is a process that strongly modulated surface geomorphic and geochemical features of Mercury. Yet, the fate of the impactors and their effects on Mercury's surface through the bombardment epoch are not clear. Using Monte-Carlo…
Previous studies of cometary impacts in the outer Solar System used the spatial distribution of ecliptic comets (ECs) from dynamical models that assumed ECs began on low-inclination orbits (<5 deg) in the Kuiper belt. In reality, the source…
The Moon holds important clues to the early evolution of the Solar System. Some 50 impact basins (crater diameter D>300 km) have been recognized on the lunar surface, implying that the early impact flux was much higher than it is now. The…
The 3:2 spin-orbit resonance between the rotational and orbital motions of Mercury results from a functional dependance on a tidal friction adding to a non-zero eccentricity with a permanent asymmetry in the equatorial plane of the planet.…
A circumsolar dust ring has been recently discovered close to the orbit of Mercury. There are currently no hypotheses for the origin of this ring in the literature, so we explore four different origin scenarios here: the dust originated…
Giant impacts were common in the early evolution of the Solar System, and it is possible that Venus also experienced an impact. A giant impact on Venus could have affected its rotation rate and possibly its thermal evolution. In this work,…
More than a half of asteroids in the main belt have irregular shapes with the ratios of the minor to major axis lengths less than 0.6. One of the mechanisms to create such shapes is collisions between asteroids. The relationship between…
Mercury's orbit can destabilize, generally resulting in a collision with either Venus or the Sun. Chaotic evolution can cause g1 to decrease to the approximately constant value of g5 and create a resonance. Previous work has approximated…