Related papers: Planetary Genealogy
Two decades ago, astronomers began detecting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, so-called exoplanets. Since that time, the rate of detections and the sensitivity to ever-smaller planets has improved dramatically with several…
We present a plausible and coherent view of the evolution of the protosolar disk that is consistent with the cosmochemical constraints and compatible with observations of other protoplanetary disks and sophisticated numerical simulations.…
The early gas-dust solar nebula is considered: the gasdynamic theory is used to study the gravitational Jeans-type instability in its protoplanetary disk. The implications for the origin of the solar system are discussed. It is shown that a…
Since the discovery of the first extra-solar planets, we are confronted with the puzzling diversity of planetary systems. Processes like planet radial migration in gas-disks and planetary orbital instabilities, often invoked to explain the…
Little is known about the stellar environment and the genealogy of our solar system. Short-lived radionuclides (SLRs, mean lifetime shorter than 100 Myr) that were present in the solar protoplanetary disk 4.56 Gyr ago could potentially…
For centuries, our knowledge of planetary systems and ideas about planet formation were based on a single example, our solar system. During the last thirteen years, the discovery of ~170 planetary systems has ushered in a new era for…
Two fundamentally different processes of rocky planet formation exist, but it is unclear which one built the terrestrial planets of the solar system. Either they formed by collisions among planetary embryos from the inner solar system, or…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
Exoplanets are typically thought to form in protoplanetary disks left over from protostellar disk of their newly formed host star. However, additional planetary formation and evolution routes may exist in old evolved binary systems. Here we…
Pebbles of millimeter sizes are abundant in protoplanetary discs around young stars. Chondrules inside primitive meteorites - formed by melting of dust aggregate pebbles or in impacts between planetesimals - have similar sizes. The role of…
Our Sun, like all stars, formed within a cold molecular cloud. Astronomical observations and theory provide considerable detail into this process. Yet cosmochemical observations of short lived radionuclides in primitive meteorites, in…
Chondritic meteorites, the building blocks of terrestrial planets, are made of an out-of-equilibrium assemblage of solids formed at high and low temperatures, either in our Solar system or previous generations of stars. This was considered…
Essentially everything of astronomical interest is either part of a galaxy, or from a galaxy, or otherwise relevant to the origin or evolution of galaxies. Diverse examples are that the isotropic composition of meteorites provides clues to…
Exoplanet surveys have confirmed one of humanity's (and all teenagers') worst fears: we are weird. If our Solar System were observed with present-day Earth technology -- to put our system and exoplanets on the same footing -- Jupiter is the…
Protoplanetary disks around young stars are the birth sights of planetary systems like our own. Disks represent the gaseous dusty matter left after the formation of their central stars. The mass and luminosity of the star, initial disk mass…
Isotope anomalies provide important information about early solar system evolution. Here we report molybdenum isotope abundances determined in samples of various meteorite classes. There is no fractionation of molybdenum isotopes in our…
Despite great advances in our understanding of the formation of the Solar System, the evolution of the Earth, and the chemical basis for life, we are not much closer than the ancient Greeks to an answer of whether life has arisen and…
Despite the increase in observational data on exoplanets, the processes that lead to the formation of planets are still not well understood. But thanks to the high number of known exoplanets, it is now possible to look at them as a…
Small bodies exist in distinct populations within their planetary systems. These reservoir populations hold a range of compositions, which to first order are dependent on formation location relative to their star. We provide a general…
Asteroids and comets are remnants from the era of Solar System formation over 4.5 billion years ago, and therefore allow us to address two fundamental questions in astronomy: what was the nature of our protoplanetary disk, and how did the…