Related papers: The Empty Primordial Asteroid Belt
A recent study suggests that CM chondrite-like planetesimals formed in the vicinity of Saturn, in a pressure bump outside the gap carved by proto-Jupiter. While a fraction of these objects was implanted into the asteroid belt as a…
The cumulative effects of weak resonant and secular perturbations by the major planets produce chaotic behavior of asteroids on long timescales. Dynamical chaos is the dominant loss mechanism for asteroids with diameters D > 10 km in the…
The formation of planetary cores must proceed rapidly in order for the giant planets to accrete their gaseous envelopes before the dissipation of the protoplanetary gas disc (<3 Myr). In orbits beyond 10 AU, direct accumulation of…
Very red featureless asteroids (spectroscopic D-types) are expected to have formed in the outer solar system far from the sun. They comprise the majority of asteroids in the Jupiter Trojan population, and are also commonly found in the…
Understanding the provenance of CI and CM chondrites, the most primitive materials in our meteorite collections, is critical for shedding light on the Solar System's early evolution and contextualizing findings from recent sample return…
With n-body simulations, we model terrestrial circumbinary planet (CBP) formation with an initial surface density profile motivated by hydrodynamic circumbinary gas disc simulations. The binary plays an important role in shaping the initial…
The statistics of extrasolar planetary systems indicate that the default mode of planet formation generates planets with orbital periods shorter than 100 days, and masses substantially exceeding that of the Earth. When viewed in this…
We measure the mid-plane of the main asteroid belt by using the observational data of a nearly complete and unbiased sample of asteroids, and find that it has inclination $\bar{I}=0.93\pm0.04$ degrees and longitude of ascending node…
Infrared spectra from the Spitzer Space Telescope (SSC) of many debris disks are well fit with a single black body temperature which suggest clearings within the disk. We assume that inside the clearing orbital instability due to planets…
Debris belts on the periphery of planetary systems, encompassing the region occupied by planetary orbits, are massive analogues of the Solar system's Kuiper belt. They are detected by thermal emission of dust released in collisions amongst…
We have performed three-dimensional two-fluid (gas-dust) hydrodynamical models of circumstellar discs with embedded protoplanets (3 - 333 M\oplu) and small solid bodies (radii 10cm to 10m). We find that high mass planets (\gtrsim Saturn…
The core-accretion and disk instability models have so far been used to explain planetary formation. These models have different conditions, such as planet mass, disk mass, and metallicity for formation of gas giants. The core-accretion…
We use the current orbital structure of large (>50km) asteroids in the main asteroid belt to constrain the evolution of the giant planets when they migrated from their primordial orbits to their current ones. Minton & Malhotra (2009) showed…
Nearly-axisymmetric gaps and rings are commonly observed in protoplanetary discs. The leading theory regarding the origin of these patterns is that they are due to dust trapping at the edges of gas gaps induced by the gravitational torques…
We examine the predictions of the core accretion - gas capture model concerning the efficiency of planet formation around stars with various masses. First, we follow the evolution of gas and solids from the moment when all solids are in the…
Centaurs are minor planets orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune that have or had crossing orbits with one or more giant planets. Recent observations and reinterpretation of previous observations have revealed the existence of ring systems…
Massive cores of the giant planets are thought to have formed in a gas disk by accretion of pebble-size particles whose accretional cross-section is enhanced by aerodynamic gas drag [1][2]. A commonly held view is that the terrestrial…
According to the core accretion theory, circumbinary embryos can form only beyond a critical semimajor axis (CSMA). However, due to the relatively high density of solid materials in the inner disk, significant amount of small planetesimals…
In the past decade, the number of known binary near-Earth asteroids has more than quadrupled and the number of known large main belt asteroids with satellites has doubled. Half a dozen triple asteroids have been discovered, and the…
We outline a scenario which traces a direct path from freely-floating nebula particles to the first 10-100km-sized bodies in the terrestrial planet region, producing planetesimals which have properties matching those of primitive meteorite…