Related papers: A hit-and-run Giant Impact scenario
Using smoothed particle hydrodynamics we model giant impacts of Super-Earth mass rocky planets between an atmosphere-less projectile and an atmosphere-rich target. In this work we present results from head-on to grazing collisions. The…
The giant impact hypothesis for Moon formation successfully explains the dynamic properties of the Earth-Moon system but remains challenged by the similarity of isotopic fingerprints of the terrestrial and lunar mantles. Moreover, recent…
Numerical simulations of the stochastic end stage of planet formation typically begin with a population of embryos and planetesimals that grow into planets by merging. We analyzed the impact parameters of collisions leading to the growth of…
The origin and evolution of Martian moons have been intensively debated in recent years. It is proposed that Phobos and Deimos may originate directly from a splitting of an ancestral moon orbiting at around the Martian synchronous orbit. At…
Satellite formation is a natural by-product of planet formation. With the discovery of nu- merous extrasolar planets, it is likely that moons of extrasolar planets (exomoons) will soon be discovered. Some of the most promising techniques…
A high-angular momentum giant impact with the Earth can produce a Moon with a silicate isotopic composition nearly identical to that of Earth's mantle, consistent with observations of terrestrial and lunar rocks. However, such an event…
With approximately one ninth of Earth's mass, Mars is widely considered to be a stranded planetary embryo that never became a fully-grown planet. A currently popular planet formation theory predicts that Mars formed near Earth and Venus and…
The evolution of the orbits of bodies ejected from the Earth has been studied at the stage of its accumulation and early evolution after impacts of large planetesimals. In the considered variants of calculations of the motion of bodies…
Uranus has a tilted rotation axis, which is supposed to be caused by a giant impact. In general, an impact event also changes the internal compositional distribution and drives mass ejection from the planet, which may provide the origin of…
The terrestrial planets are believed to have formed by violent collisions of tens of lunar- to Mars-size protoplanets at time t<200 Myr after the protoplanetary gas disk dispersal (t_0). The solar system giant planets rapidly formed during…
It has long been assumed that the planet Jupiter acts as a giant shield, significantly lowering the impact rate of minor bodies upon the Earth, and thus enabling the development and evolution of life in a collisional environment which is…
Planet-planet scattering is the leading mechanism to explain the broad eccentricity distribution of observed giant exoplanets. Here we study the orbital stability of primordial giant planet moons in this scenario. We use N-body simulations…
Mercury has an unusually large metal core comprising ~70% of its mass comparing to all other terrestrial planets in the solar system. Giant impacts can remove a significant fraction of the silicate mantle of a chondritic proto-Mercury and…
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 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 solar system's dynamical state can be explained by an orbital instability among the giant planets. A recent model has proposed that the giant planet instability happened during terrestrial planet formation. This scenario has been shown…
A framework for the theoretical and analytical understanding of the impact crater-size frequency distribution is developed and applied to observed data from Mars and Earth. The analitical model derived gives the crater population,N, as a…
Gas giant planets in the Solar system host large satellite systems with multiple regular and irregular moons. Regular moons revolve around their host planet in circular, low inclination short period orbits, and are thought to form in-situ…
The transfer of material between planetary bodies due to impact events is important for understanding planetary evolution, meteoroid impact fluxes, the formation of near-Earth objects (NEOs), and even the provenance of volatile and organic…
The origin of Phobos and Deimos is still an open question. Currently, none of the three proposed scenarios for their origin (intact capture of two distinct outer solar system small bodies, co-accretion with Mars, and accretion within an…