Related papers: Forming Mercury by Giant Impacts
Mesosiderites are a type of stony-iron meteorites composed of a mixture of silicates and Fe-Ni metals. The mesosiderite silicates and metals are considered to have originated from the crust and metal core, respectively, of a differentiated…
We investigate the distribution of encounter velocities and impact angles describing collisions in the habitable zone of the early planetary system. Here we present a catalogue of collision characteristics for a particular mass ratio of the…
In the canonical model of Moon formation, a Mars-sized protoplanet "Theia" collides with proto-Earth at close to their mutual escape velocity $v_{\rm esc}$ and a common impact angle 45{\deg}. The "graze-and-merge" collision strands a…
It is reasonable to assume that the structure of a planet and the interior distribution of its components are determined by its formation history. We thus follow the growth of a planet from a small embryo through its subsequent evolution.…
Observational studies show that the probability of finding gas giant planets around a star increases with the star's metallicity. Our latest simulations of disks undergoing gravitational instabilities (GIs) with realistic radiative cooling…
According to the giant impact theory, the Moon formed through accreting the debris disk produced by a collision between Theia and the proto-Earth. The giant impact theory can explain most of the properties of the Earth-Moon system, however,…
The two current models for giant planet formation are core accretion and disk instability. We discuss the core masses and overall planetary enrichment in heavy elements predicted by the two formation models, and show that both models could…
Correlations between stellar properties and the occurrence rate of exoplanets can be used to inform the target selection of future planet search efforts and provide valuable clues about the planet formation process. We analyze a sample of…
The current properties of small bodies provide important clues to their origin and history. However, how much small bodies were processed by past collisions and to what extent they retain a record of processes that took place during the…
In the standard model of core accretion, the formation of giant planets occurs by two main processes: first, a massive core is formed by the accretion of solid material; then, when this core exceeds a critical value (typically greater than…
Direct imaging observations of planets revealed that wide-orbit ($>10$ au) giant planets exist even around subsolar-metallicity host stars and do not require metal-rich environments for their formation. A possible formation mechanism of…
Three principal concepts regarding lunar formation have been examined: the accretion hypothesis, the mega-impact theory, and the multi-impact model. The multi-impact model amalgamates the salient facets of the mega-impact theory and the…
Mini-Neptunes and volatile-poor super-Earths coexist on adjacent orbits in proximity to host stars such as Kepler-36 and Kepler-11. Several post-formation processes have been proposed for explaining the origin of the compositional…
Impact craters exist on various solid objects in the planetary system. A simplified analogy of the process of their formation is here analyzed by standard solid state physics and the so called dynamic quantized fracture mechanics. An…
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 present a new scaling law to predict the loss of atmosphere from planetary collisions for any speed, angle, impactor mass, target mass, and body compositions, in the regime of giant impacts onto broadly terrestrial planets with…
The detailed interior structure models of super-Earth planets show that there is degeneracy in the possible bulk compositions of a super-Earth at a given mass and radius, determined via radial velocity and transit measurements,…
Recent models of solar system formation suggest that a dynamical instability among the giant planets happened within the first 100 Myr after disk dispersal, perhaps before the Moon-forming impact. As a direct consequence, a bombardment of…
Most of planet formation models that incorporate planetesimal fragmentation consider a catastrophic impact energy threshold for basalts at a constant velocity of 3 km/s during all the process of the formation of the planets. However, as…
Giant impacts, the collisions between planetary embryos, play a crucial role in sculpting the planets and their orbital architectures. Numerical simulations have advanced our understanding of these events, enabling estimations of mass and…