Related papers: Revelations on Jupiter's Formation, Evolution and …
(Abridged) The chemical composition of planetary atmospheres has long been thought to store information regarding where and when a planet accretes its material. Predicting this chemical composition theoretically is a crucial step in linking…
We present a new numerical framework to model the formation and evolution of giant planets. The code is based on the further development of the stellar evolution toolkit Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). The model…
The Saturn System has been studied in detail by the Cassini-Huygens Mission. A major thrust of those investigations has been to understand how Saturn formed and evolved and to place Saturn in the context of other gas giants and planetary…
Jupiter's atmosphere has been observed to be depleted in helium (Yatm~0.24), suggesting active helium sedimentation in the interior. This is accounted for in standard Jupiter structure and evolution models through the assumption of an…
Hydrogen-helium mixtures at conditions of Jupiter's interior are studied with first-principles computer simulations. The resulting equation of state (EOS) implies that Jupiter possesses a central core of 14-18 Earth masses of heavier…
Jupiter's enhancement in nitrogen relative to hydrogen when compared to the Sun has been interpreted as evidence that its early formation occurred beyond the N$_{2}$ snowline ($\sim$ 20-40 AU). However, the rapid growth necessary to form…
Planetary rings are often speculated as being a relatively common attribute of giant planets, partly based on their prevalence within the Solar System. However, their formation and sustainability remain a topic of open discussion, and the…
The intrinsic luminosity of young Jupiters is of high interest for planet formation theory. It is an observable quantity that is determined by important physical mechanisms during formation, namely the accretion shock structure, and even…
Recent measurements of Jupiter's gravitational moments by the Juno spacecraft and seismology of Saturn's rings suggest that the primordial composition gradients in the deep interior of these planets have persisted since their formation. One…
Observations from the Juno spacecraft show that Jupiter has a large dilute core rather than a compact core. To investigate the effects of different core structures on wave propagation and transmission in Jupiter's interior, we consider…
We present updated atmospheric tables suitable for calculating the post-formation evolution and cooling of Jupiter and Jupiter-like exoplanets. These tables are generated using a 1D radiative transfer modeling code that incorporates the…
Jupiter's atmosphere-interior is a coupled fluid dynamical system strongly influenced by the rapid background rotation. While the visible atmosphere features east-west zonal winds on the order of 100 m/s (Tollefson et al. 2017), zonal flows…
Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…
We explore the change in Jupiter's normalized axial moment of inertia (NMOI) assuming that Jupiter undergoes core erosion. It is found that Jupiter's contraction combined with an erosion of 20 M_Earth from a primordial core of 30 M_Earth…
The Core Accretion model is widely accepted as the primary mechanism for forming planets up to a few Jupiter masses. However, the formation of super-massive planets remains a subject of debate, as their formation via the Core Accretion…
Models of Jupiter s interior struggle to agree with measurements of the atmospheric composition. Interior models favour a subsolar or solar abundance of heavy elements Z while atmospheric measurements suggest a supersolar abundance. One…
Jupiter's deep abundances help to constrain the formation history of the planet and the environment of the protoplanetary nebula. Juno recently measured Jupiter's deep oxygen abundance near the equator to be 2.2$_{-2.1}^{+3.9}$ times the…
While conventional interior models for Jupiter and Saturn are based on the simplistic assumption of a solid core surrounded by a homogeneous gaseous envelope, we derive new models with an inhomogeneous distribution of heavy elements, i.e. a…
Recently, gas giant planets in nearly circular orbits with large semimajor axes ($a \sim$ 30--1000AU) have been detected by direct imaging. We have investigated orbital evolution in a formation scenario for such planets, based on core…
A giant impact has been proposed as a possible formation mechanism for Jupiter's dilute core -- the planet's inferred internal structure in which the transition between its core of heavy elements and its predominantly hydrogen-helium…