Related papers: The early instability scenario: Mars' mass explain…
The dynamical structure of the Solar System can be explained by a period of orbital instability experienced by the giant planets. While a late instability was originally proposed to explain the Late Heavy Bombardment, recent work favors an…
Advances in computing power and numerical methodologies over the past several decades sparked a prolific output of dynamical investigations of the late stages of terrestrial planet formation. Among other peculiar inner solar system…
The terrestrial planets are believed to have formed by violent collisions of tens of lunar- to Mars-size protoplanets at time t<200 Myr after the protoplanetary gas disk dispersal (t_0). The solar system giant planets rapidly formed during…
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…
The inner solar system's modern orbital architecture provides inferences into the epoch of terrestrial planet formation; a ~100 Myr time period of planet growth via collisions with planetesimals and other proto-planets. While classic…
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…
The Solar System's orbital structure is thought to have been sculpted by an episode of dynamical instability among the giant planets. However, the instability trigger and timing have not been clearly established. Hydrodynamical modeling has…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
Several properties of the Solar System, including the wide radial spacing and orbital eccentricities of giant planets, can be explained if the early Solar System evolved through a dynamical instability followed by migration of planets in…
The process leading to the formation of the terrestrial planet remains elusive. In a previous publication, we have shown that, if the first generation of planetesimals forms in a ring at about 1 AU and the gas disk's density peaks at the…
Jupiter and Saturn formed in a few million years (Haisch et al. 2001) from a gas-dominated protoplanetary disk, and were susceptible to gas-driven migration of their orbits on timescales of only ~100,000 years (Armitage 2007). Hydrodynamic…
We investigate the possibility that the Moon's formation impact was triggered by an early dynamical instability of the giant planets. We consider the well-studied "jumping Jupiter" hypothesis for the solar system's instability, where…
It is generally accepted today that our solar system has undergone a phase during which the orbits of the giant planets became very unstable. In recent years, many studies have identified traces of this event and have provided reasonable…
In the past two decades, transit surveys have revealed a class of planets with thick atmospheres -- sub-Neptunes -- that must have completed their accretion in protoplanet disks. When planets form in the gaseous disk, the gravitational…
In a recent paper we proposed that the giant planets' primordial orbits may have been eccentric (~0.05), and used a suite of dynamical simulations to show outcomes of the giant planet instability that are consistent with their present-day…
Terrestrial planets are thought to be the result of a vast number of gravitational interactions and collisions between smaller bodies. We use numerical simulations to show that practically identical initial conditions result in a wide array…
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…
The newly formed giant planets may have migrated and crossed a number of mutual mean motion resonances (MMRs) when smaller objects (embryos) were accreting to form the terrestrial planets. We investigated the effects of the…
The large scale structure of the Solar System has been shaped by a transient dynamical instability that may have been triggered by the interaction of the giants planets with a massive primordial disk of icy debris. In this work, we…
Evidence in the Solar System suggests that the giant planets underwent an epoch of radial migration that was very rapid, with an e-folding timescale shorter than 1~Myr. It is probable that the cause of this migration was that the giant…