Related papers: Collisional heating and compaction of small bodies…
Observed Hot Jupiters exhibit a wide range of physical properties. For a given mass, many planets have inflated radii, while others are surprisingly compact and may harbor large central cores. Motivated by the observational sample, this…
The interest in the structure of ice-rich planetary bodies, in particular the differentiation between ice and rock, has grown due to the discovery of Kuiper belt objects and exoplanets. We thus carry out a parameter study for a range of…
The most pristine remnants of the Solar system's planet formation epoch orbit the Sun beyond Neptune, the small bodies of the trans-Neptunian object populations. The bulk of the mass is in ~100 km objects, but objects at smaller sizes have…
We propose that chondrules and chondrites formed together during a brief radiative heating event caused by the close encounter of a small (m to km-scale), primitive planetesimal (SPP) with incandescent lava on the surface of a large (100…
Juno and Cassini have shown that Jupiter and Saturn likely contain extended gradients of heavy elements. Yet, how these gradients can survive over billions of years remains an open question. Classical convection theories predict rapid…
The coagulation of microscopic dust into planetesimals is the first step towards planet formation. The size and shape of the growing aggregates determine the efficiency of this early growth. It has been proposed that fluffy ice aggregates…
We present a comprehensive review of the theoretical and experimental progress in the investigation of novel high-temperature quantum chromodynamics phenomena in small systems at both the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron…
Collisions between centimeter- to decimeter-sized dusty bodies are important to understand the mechanisms leading to the formation of planetesimals. We thus performed laboratory experiments to study the collisional behavior of dust…
We investigate structure of self-gravitating disks, their fragmentation and evolution of the fragments (the clumps) using both analytic approach and three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulations starting from molecular cores. The…
The overall shape, internal structure and surface morphology of small bodies such as asteroids and comets are determined to a large degree by the last global-scale impact or disruption event. Depending on the specific energy, impacts lead…
Numerous exoplanets with masses ranging from Earth to Neptune and radii larger than Earth have been found through observations. These planets possess atmospheres that range in mass fractions from 1% to 30%, reflecting the diversity of…
Collisional evolution is a key process in planetesimal formation and decimetre bodies play a key role in the different models. However, the outcome of collisions between two dusty decimetre bodies has never been studied experimentally.…
Questions regarding how primordial or pristine the comets of the solar system are have been an ongoing controversy. In this review, we describe comets' physical evolution from dust and ice grains in the solar nebula to the contemporary…
We use a multiannulus planetesimal accretion code to investigate the growth of icy planets in the outer regions of a planetesimal disk. In a quiescent minimum mass solar nebula, icy planets grow to sizes of 1000--3000 km on a timescale t =…
Here we present an improved algorithm to model the serpentinization process in planetesimals in the early Solar system. Although it is hypothesized that serpentinization-like reactions played an important role in the thermal evolution of…
Massive giant planets, such as the ones being discovered by direct imaging surveys, likely experience the majority of their growth through a circumplanetary disc. We argue that the entropy of accreted material is determined by boundary…
The origin of rings around giant planets remains elusive. Saturn's rings are massive and made of 90-95% of water ice. In contrast, the much less massive rings of Uranus and Neptune are dark and likely to have higher rock fraction. Here we…
Because of the high energies involved, giant impacts that occur during planetary accretion cause large degrees of melting. The depth of melting in the target body after each collision determines the pressure and temperature conditions 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…
Chondritic meteorites contain unique spherical materials named chondrules: sub-mm sized silicate grains once melted in a high temperature condition in the solar nebula. We numerically explore one of chondrule forming processes, planetesimal…