Related papers: Giant impact on early Ganymede and its subsequent …
Furrows are a concentric system of tectonic troughs, and are the oldest recognizable surface feature on Ganymede. We analyzed the distribution of furrows utilizing Voyager and Galileo images and found that furrows over Ganymede's surface…
Recent studies have revealed that all large (over 1000 km in diameter) trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) form satellite systems. Although the largest Plutonian satellite, Charon, is thought to be an intact fragment of an impactor directly…
Dark matter in the form of macroscopic composites is largely unconstrained at masses of $\sim 10^{11}- 10^{17}$ g. In this mass range, dark matter may collide with planetary bodies, depositing an immense amount of energy and leaving…
The goal of this chapter is to review hypotheses for the origin of the Pluto system in light of observational constraints that have been considerably refined over the 85-year interval between the discovery of Pluto and its exploration by…
The origin of the Uranian satellite system remains uncertain. The four major satellites have nearly circular, co-planar orbits and the ratio of the satellite system and planetary mass resembles Jupiter's satellite system, suggesting the…
Giant impacts refer to collisions between two objects each of which is massive enough to be considered at least a planetary embryo. The putative collision suffered by the proto-Earth that created the Moon is a prime example, though most…
It has long been assumed that the planet Jupiter acts as a giant shield, significantly lowering the impact rate of minor bodies upon the Earth, and thus enabling the development and evolution of life in a collisional environment which is…
The giant planets of the solar system likely played a large role in shaping the architecture of the terrestrial planets. Using an updated collision model, we conduct a suite of high resolution N-body integrations to probe the relationship…
It is widely accepted that Titan and the mid-sized regular satellites around Saturn were formed in the circum-Saturn disk. Thus, if these mid-sized satellites were simply accreted by collisions of similar ice-rock satellitesimals in the…
The origin of the highly eccentric, inclined, and resonance-locked orbit of Pluto has long been a puzzle. A possible explanation has been proposed recently [Malhotra, R., {\it Nature} 365:819-21 (1993)] which suggests that these…
In the giant impact hypothesis for lunar origin, the Moon accreted from an equatorial circum-terrestrial disk; however the current lunar orbital inclination of 5 degrees requires a subsequent dynamical process that is still debated. In…
The various processes which generate magnetic fields within the Jupiter system are exemplary for a large class of similar processes occurring at other planets in the solar system, but also around extrasolar planets. Jupiter's large internal…
The Moon is traditionally thought to have coalesced from the debris ejected by a giant impact onto the early Earth. However, such models struggle to explain the similar isotopic compositions of Earth and lunar rocks at the same time as the…
Giant impacts, the collisions between planetary embryos, play a crucial role in sculpting the planets and their orbital architectures. Numerical simulations have advanced our understanding of these events, enabling estimations of mass and…
The `Grand Tack' model proposes that the inner Solar System was sculpted by the giant planets' orbital migration in the gaseous protoplanetary disk. Jupiter first migrated inward then Jupiter and Saturn migrated back outward together. If…
We simulate the collision of precursor icy moons analogous to Dione and Rhea as a possible origin for Saturn's remarkably young rings. Such an event could have been triggered a few hundred million years ago by resonant instabilities in a…
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,…
It is proposed and substantiated that an extraterrestrial object of the approximate size and mass of Planet Mars, impacting the Earth in grazing incidence along an approximately N-NE to S-SW route with respect to the current orientation of…
Immediately after their formation, the terrestrial planets experienced intense impact bombardment by comets, leftover planetesimals from primary accretion, and asteroids. This temporal interval in solar system evolution, termed late…
The Earth-Moon system is unusual in several respects. The Moon is roughly 1/4 the radius of the Earth - a larger satellite-to-planet size ratio than all known satellites other than Pluto's Charon. The Moon has a tiny core, perhaps with only…