Related papers: Growing the terrestrial planets from the gradual a…
The formation of the solar system's giant planets predated the ultimate epoch of massive impacts that concluded the process of terrestrial planet formation. Following their formation, the giant planets' orbits evolved through an episode of…
A successful solar system model must reproduce the four terrestrial planets. Here, we focus on 1) the likelihood of forming Mercury and the four terrestrial planets in the same system (a 4-P system); 2) the orbital properties and masses of…
We investigate pathways for the formation of icy super-Earth mass planets orbiting at 125-250 AU around a 1 solar mass star. An extensive suite of coagulation calculations demonstrates that swarms of 1 cm to 10 m planetesimals can form…
The four major satellites of Jupiter, known as the Galilean moons, and Saturn's most massive satellite, Titan, are believed to have formed in a predominantly gaseous circum-planetary disk, during the last stages of formation of their parent…
We examine the effect of giant planet migration on the formation of inner terrestrial planet systems. We consider situations in which the giant planet halts migration at semi-major axes in the range 0.13 - 1.7 AU due to gas disk dispersal.…
The models that most successfully reproduce the orbital architecture of the Solar System terrestrial planets start from a narrow annulus of material that grows into embryos and then planets. However, it is not clear how this ring model can…
Giant planet embryos are believed to be spawned by gravitational instability in massive extended (R ~ 100 AU) protostellar discs. In a recent paper we have shown that dust can sediment inside the embryos, as argued earlier by Boss (1998) in…
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
We present numerical simulations of terrestrial planet formation that examine the growth continuously from planetesimals to planets in the inner Solar System. Previous studies show that the growth will be inside-out, but it is still common…
We present nested-grid, high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of gas and particle dynamics in the vicinity of Mars- to Earth-mass planetary embryos. The simulations extend from the surface of the embryos to a few vertical disk scale…
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…
Asteroids and meteorites provide key evidence on the formation of planetesimals in the Solar System. Asteroids are traditionally thought to form in a bottom-up process by coagulation within a population of initially km-scale planetesimals.…
The growth and migration of planetesimals in a young protoplanetary disc are fundamental to planet formation. In all models of early growth, there are several processes that can inhibit grains from reaching larger sizes. Nevertheless,…
We investigate an in-situ formation scenario for Earth-mass terrestrial planets in short-period, potentially habitable orbits around low-mass stars (M_star < 0.3 M_sun). We then investigate the feasibility of detecting these Earth-sized…
We investigate the formation of planetesimals via the gravitational instability of solids that have settled to the midplane of a circumstellar disk. Vertical shear between the gas and a subdisk of solids induces turbulent mixing which…
For the origin of the radially concentrated solar system's terrestrial planets, planet formation from a ring of solids at about 1 au from the Sun with convergent/suppressed type I migration is preferred. On the other hand, many super-Earths…
Planet formation occurs around a wide range of stellar masses and stellar system architectures. An improved understanding of the formation process can be achieved by studying it across the full parameter space, particularly toward the…
We run numerical simulations to study the accretion of gas and dust grains onto gas giant planets embedded into massive protoplanetary discs. The outcome is found to depend on the disc cooling rate, planet mass, grain size and irradiative…
"Pebble snow" describes a planet formation mechanism where icy pebbles in the outer disk reach inner planet embryos as the water ice line evolves inward. We model the effects pebble snow has on sculpting planetary system architectures by…
We examine the accretion of cores of giant planets from planetesimals, gas accretion onto the cores, and their orbital migration. We adopt a working model for nascent protostellar disks with a wide variety of surface density distributions…