Related papers: Multiple Impact Origin for the Moon
In recent years, there has been interest in Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zones of low mass stars ($\sim0.1-0.6\,M_\odot$). Furthermore, it has been argued that a large moon may be important for stabilizing conditions on a planet…
Moons tidally interact with their host planets and stars. A close moon is quickly synchronised by the planet, or becomes captured in a higher spin-orbit resonance. However, the planet requires much more time to significantly alter its…
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…
Constraining planet formation models based on the observed exoplanet population requires generating large samples of synthetic planetary systems, which can be computationally prohibitive. A significant bottleneck is simulating the giant…
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 Moon-forming giant impact significantly influenced the initial thermal state of Earth's mantle by generating a global magma ocean, marking the onset of mantle evolution. Recent Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations indicate…
Many dynamical aspects of the solar system can be explained by the outer planets experiencing a period of orbital instability sometimes called the Nice Model. Though often correlated with a perceived delayed spike in the lunar cratering…
Recent lunar crater studies have revealed an asymmetric distribution of rayed craters on the lunar surface. The asymmetry is related to the synchronous rotation of the Moon: there is a higher density of rayed craters on the leading…
Earth and Moon are shown here to be composed of oxygen isotope reservoirs that are indistinguishable, with a difference in {\Delta}"17O of -1 +/- 5ppm (2se). Based on these data and our new planet formation simulations that include a…
If properly interpreted, the impact record of the Moon, Earth's nearest neighbour, can be used to gain insights into how the Earth has been influenced by impacting events since its formation ~4.5 billion years (Ga) ago. However, the nature…
The complex interplay between the Solar Wind and the lunar surface serves as a quintessential example of space weathering. However, uncertainties persist regarding the influence of plasma originating from Earth's ionosphere, necessitating a…
The origin of the Uranian satellite system remains uncertain. The four major satellites have nearly circular, co-planar orbits and the ratio of the satellite system and planetary mass resembles Jupiter's satellite system, suggesting the…
Despite its importance to questions of lunar origin, the chemical composition of the Moon is not precisely known. In recent years, however, the isotopic composition of lunar samples has been determined to high precision and found to be…
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…
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…
During the formation of rocky planets, the surface environments of growing protoplanets were dramatically different from those of present-day planets. The release of gravitational energy during accretion would have maintained a molten…
Of the few thousand discovered exoplanets, a significant number orbit in the habitable zone of their star. Many of them are gas giants lacking a rocky surface and solid water reservoirs necessary for life as we know it. The search for…
After the formation of the Moon the terrestrial planets were pummelled by impacts from planetesimals left over from terrestrial planet formation. This work attempts to reproduce the impact rates set by modern crater chronologies using…
The lunar farside highlands, referred to as the lunar farside thicker crust compared with the nearside crust, presents a challenge to the theory of formation and evolution of the Moon. Here, we show that, after the Moon reached synchronous…
In the late stage of terrestrial planet formation, planets are predicted to undergo pairwise collisions known as giant impacts. Here we present a high-resolution database of giant impacts for differentiated colliding bodies of iron-silicate…