Related papers: A Magnetized, Moon-Forming Giant Impact
The hypothesis of a recent origin of Saturn's rings and its mid-sized moons is actively debated. It was suggested that a proto-Rhea and a proto-Dione might have collided recently, giving birth to the modern system of mid-sized moons. It is…
Disc winds and planet formation are considered to be two of the most important mechanisms that drive the evolution and dispersal of protoplanetary discs and in turn define the environment in which planets form and evolve. While both have…
We first consider how the level of turbulence in a protoplanetary disk affects the formation locations for the observed close-in super-Earths in exosolar systems. We find that a protoplanetary disk that includes a dead zone (a region of low…
Planets appear to form in environments shaped by the gas flowing through protostellar disks to the central young stars. The flows in turn are governed by orbital angular momentum transfer. In this chapter we summarize current understanding…
The moon-forming impact and the subsequent evolution of the proto-Earth is strongly dependent on the properties of materials at the extreme conditions generated by this violent collision. We examine the high pressure behavior of MgO, one of…
Almost all the planets of our solar system have moons. Each planetary system has however unique characteristics. The Martian system has not one single big moon like the Earth, not tens of moons of various sizes like for the giant planets,…
"Moon-magnetosphere interaction" stands for the interaction of magnetospheric plasma with an orbiting moon. Observations and modeling of moon-magnetosphere interaction is a highly interesting area of space physics because it helps to better…
The gas from which stars form is magnetized, and strong magnetic fields can efficiently transport angular momentum. Most theoretical models of this phenomenon find that it should prevent formation of large (>100 AU), rotationally-supported…
Planet-disk interactions, where an embedded massive body interacts gravitationally with the protoplanetary disk it was formed in, can play an important role in reshaping both the disk and the orbit of the planet. Spiral density waves are…
Various theories have been proposed to explain the Moon's current inclined orbit. We test the viability of these theories by reconstructing the thermal-orbital history of the Moon. We build on past thermal-orbital models and incorporate the…
The presence of distant protoplanets may explain the observed gaps in the dust emission of protoplanetary disks. Here, we derive a novel analytical model to describe the temporal decay of the pebble flux through a protoplanetary disk as the…
Intermediate mass planets, from Super-Earth to Neptune-sized bodies, are the most common type of planets in the galaxy. The prevailing theory of planet formation, core-accretion, predicts significantly fewer intermediate-mass giant planets…
Current lunar origin scenarios suggest that Earth's Moon may have resulted from the merger of two (or more) smaller moonlets. Dynamical studies of multiple moons find that these satellite systems are not stable, resulting in moonlet…
We present collapse simulations of strongly magnetised, turbulent molecular cloud cores with masses ranging from 2.6 to 1000 M_sun in order to study the influence of the initial conditions on the turbulence-induced disc formation mechanism…
Quantifying the energy budget of Earth in the first few million years following the Moon-forming giant impact is vital to understanding Earth's initial thermal state and the dynamics of lunar tidal evolution. After the impact, the body was…
The absence of planets interior to Mercury continues to puzzle terrestrial planet formation models, particularly when contrasted with the relatively high derived occurrence rates of short-period planets around Sun-like stars. Recent work…
Massive disk fragmentation has been suggested to be one of the mechanisms leading to the formation of giant planets. While it has been heavily studied in quiescent hydrodynamic disks, the effect of MHD turbulence arising from the…
The Moon exhibits striking geological asymmetries in elevation, crustal thickness, and composition between its nearside and farside. Although several scenarios have been proposed to explain these asymmetries, their origin remains debated.…
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…
The leading hypothesis for the origin of the Moon, that of a single giant impact, faces significant challenges. These include either the need for an impactor with a near-identical composition to Earth or an extremely high-mass or…