Related papers: Global Scale Impacts
Models of planet formation are built on underlying physical processes. In order to make sense of the origin of the planets we must first understand the origin of their building blocks. This review comes in two parts. The first part presents…
The final "giant-impact" phase of terrestrial planet formation is believed to begin with a large number of planetary "embryos" on nearly circular, coplanar orbits. Mutual gravitational interactions gradually excite their eccentricities…
All planets and satellites of our solar system are subject to a continuous rain of material, ranging in size from specks of dust to objects the size of boulders. Upon impact, these objects deposit their kinetic energy into the incident…
Giant impacts dominate the late stages of accretion of rocky planets. They contribute to the heating, melting, and sometimes vaporizing of the bodies involved in the impacts. Due to fractionation during melting and vaporization,…
The semi-analytic theory of tidal shocks proves to be a powerful tool to study tidal interactions of star clusters and satellite galaxies with their massive hosts. New models of the globular cluster evolution employ a combination of…
A class of models for large-scale evolution and mass extinctions is presented. These models incorporate environmental changes on all scales, from influences on a single species to global effects. This is a step towards a unified picture of…
With N-body simulations of a planetary system with an asteroid belt we investigate how the asteroid impact rate on the Earth is affected by the architecture of the planetary system. We find that the $\nu_6$ secular resonance plays an…
Metallic bodies that were the cores of differentiated bodies are sources of iron meteorites and are considered to have formed early in the terrestrial planet region before migrating to the main asteroid belt. Surface temperatures and mutual…
Giant impacts have been suggested to explain various characteristics of terrestrial planets and their moons. However, so far in most models only the immediate effects of the collisions have been considered, while the long-term interior…
These notes collect together current work on the effect of the environment on galaxy formation and evolution. They are broken into four distinct parts. The first deals with the observational debate surrounding the question of whether…
While the number of asteroids with known shapes has drastically increased over the past few years, little is known on the the time-evolution of shapes and the underlying physical processes. Here we propose an averaged abrasion model based…
The brittle fragmentation of spheres is studied numerically by a 3D Discrete Element Model. Large scale computer simulations are performed with models that consist of agglomerates of many spherical particles, interconnected by beam-truss…
Almost all meteorite impacts occur at oblique incidence angles, but the effect of impact angle on crater size is not well understood, especially for large craters. To improve oblique impact crater scaling, we present a suite of simulations…
A large-scale smoothed-out model of the universe ignores small-scale inhomogeneities, but the averaged effects of those inhomogeneities may alter both observational and dynamical relations at the larger scale. This article discusses these…
Craters form as the lander's exhaust interacts with the planetary surfaces. Understanding this phenomenon is imperative to ensure safe landings. We investigate crater morphology, where a turbulent air jet impinges on the granular surfaces.…
Growing planets interact with their surrounding protoplanetary disk, generating feedback effects that may promote or suppress nearby planet formation. We study how spiral waves launched by planets affect the motion and collisional evolution…
Impacts play a fundamental role in shaping the physical and chemical properties of the objects in our Solar System. Given the challenges in replicating such collisions through laboratory experiments, computer simulations are an important…
When a granular material is impacted by a sphere, its surface deforms like a liquid yet it preserves a circular crater like a solid. Although the mechanism of granular impact cratering by solid spheres is well explored, our knowledge on…
Planet migration is the process by which a planet's orbital radius changes in time. The main agent for causing gas giant planet migration is the gravitational interaction of the young planet with the gaseous disk from which it forms. We…
Many asteroids that make close encounters with terrestrial planets are in a binary configuration. Here we calculate the relevant encounter timescales and investigate the effects of encounters on a binary's mutual orbit. We use a combination…