Related papers: Mercury's formation within the Early Instability S…

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…

Forming planetary systems are populated by large numbers of gravitationally interacting planetary bodies, spanning from massive giant planets to small planetesimals akin to present-day asteroids and comets. All these planetary bodies are…

Radiometric dating indicates that Mars accreted in the first ~4 Myr of solar system formation, which coincides with the formation and possible migration of Jupiter. While nebular gas from the protoplanetary disk was still present, Jupiter…

Numerical simulations of the stochastic end stage of planet formation typically begin with a population of embryos and planetesimals that grow into planets by merging. We analyzed the impact parameters of collisions leading to the growth of…

The MESSENGER mission sought to discover what physical processes determined Mercury's high metal to silicate ratio. Instead, the mission has discovered multiple anomalous characteristics about our innermost planet. The lack of FeO and the…

We study the evolution of debris created in the giant impacts expected during the final stages of terrestrial planet formation. The starting point is the debris created in a simulation of the Moon-forming impact. The dynamical evolution is…

Most of the properties of the Earth-Moon system can be explained by a collision between a planetary embryo and the growing Earth late in the accretion process. Simulations show that most of the material that eventually aggregates to form…

We used recently produced Solar System ephemerides, which incorporate two years of ranging observations to the MESSENGER spacecraft, to extract the secular orbital elements for Mercury and associated uncertainties. As Mercury is in a stable…

Earth-mass bodies are expected to undergo Type I migration directed either inward or outward depending on the thermodynamical state of the protoplanetary disc. Zones of convergent migration exist where the Type I torque cancels out. We…

It has been long proposed that, if all the terrestrial planets form within a tiny ring of solid material at around 1 AU, the concentrated mass-distance distribution of the current system can be reproduced. Recent planetesimal formation…

Planets with masses larger than about 0.1 Earth-masses undergo rapid inward migration (type I migration) in a standard protoplanetary disk. Recent magnetohydrodynamical simulations revealed the presence of magnetically driven disk winds,…

Transitional disks are protoplanetary disks with large and deep central holes in the gas, possibly carved by young planets. Dong, R., & Dawson, R. 2016, ApJ, 825, 7 simulated systems with multiple giant planets that were capable of carving…

Due to the chaotic nature of the Solar System, the question of its long-term stability can only be answered in a statistical sense, for instance, based on numerical ensemble integrations of nearby orbits. Destabilization of the inner…

We propose a pebble-driven core accretion scenario to explain the formation of giant planets around the late-M dwarfs of $M_{\star}{=}0.1{-}0.2 \ M_{\odot}$. In order to explore the optimal disk conditions for giant planet, we perform…

The standard model for giant planet formation is based on the accretion of solids by a growing planetary embryo, followed by rapid gas accretion once the planet exceeds a so-called critical mass. The dominant size of the accreted solids…

Mercury's eccentricity is chaotic and can increase so much that collisions with Venus or the Sun become possible (Laskar, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2008, Batygin & Laughlin, 2008, Laskar & Gastineau, 2009). This chaotic behavior results from an…

We employ planetary evolution modeling to reproduce the MR distribution of the 198 so far detected planets with mass and radius measured to the <45% and <15% level, respectively, and less massive than 108Me. We simultaneously account for…

According to the sequential accretion model, giant planet formation is based first on the formation of a solid core which, when massive enough, can gravitationally bind gas from the nebula to form the envelope. In order to trigger the…

Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…

Newly-formed planetary systems with ages of <10 Myr offer many unique insights into the formation, evolution, and fundamental properties of extrasolar planets. These planets have fallen beyond the limits of past surveys, but as we enter the…