Related papers: Formation of super-Mercuries via giant impacts
The final stage of planet formation is dominated by collisions between planetary embryos. The dynamics of this stage determine the orbital configuration and the mass and composition of planets in the system. In the solar system, late giant…
The origin of Mercury still remains poorly understood compared to the other rocky planets of the Solar System. One of the most relevant constraints that any formation model has to fulfill refers to its internal structure, with a predominant…
The classical scenario of terrestrial planet formation is characterized by a phase of giant impacts among Moon-to-Mars mass planetary embryos. While the classic model and its adaptations have produced adequate analogs of the outer three…
Numerous exoplanets with masses ranging from Earth to Neptune and radii larger than Earth have been found through observations. These planets possess atmospheres that range in mass fractions from 1% to 30%, reflecting the diversity of…
Modern models of terrestrial planet formation require solids depletion interior to 0.5-0.7 au in the planetesimal disk to explain the small mass of Mercury. Earth and Venus analogues emerge after ~100 Myr collisional growth while Mercury…
Much of a planet's composition could be determined right at the onset of formation. Laboratory experiments can constrain these early steps. This includes static tensile strength measurements or collisions carried out under Earth's gravity…
Exomoons orbiting terrestrial or super-terrestrial exoplanets have not yet been discovered; their possible existence and properties are therefore still an unresolved question. Here we explore the collisional formation of exomoons through…
Pairwise collisions between terrestrial embryos are the dominant means of accretion during the last stage of planet formation. Hence, their realistic treatment in N-body studies is critical to accurately model the formation of terrestrial…
Although current sensitivity limits are such that true Solar System analogs remain challenging to detect, numerous planetary systems have been discovered that are very different from our own Solar System. The majority of systems harbor a…
At the final stage of terrestrial planet formation, known as the giant impact stage, a few tens of Mars-sized protoplanets collide with one another to form terrestrial planets. Almost all previous studies on the orbital and accretional…
In spite of substantial advancements in simulating planet formation, the planet Mercury's diminutive mass, isolated orbit, and the absence of planets with shorter orbital periods in the solar system continue to befuddle numerical accretion…
Mercury is notoriously difficult to form in solar system simulations, due to its small mass and iron-rich composition. Smooth particle hydrodynamics simulations of collisions have found that a Mercury-like body could be formed by one or…
Super-Mercuries, rocky exoplanets with bulk iron mass fraction of more than 60 per cent, appear to be preferentially hosted by stars with higher iron mass fraction than the Earth. It is unclear whether these iron-rich planets can form in…
Giant impacts dominate the late stages of accretion of rocky planets. They contribute to the heating, melting, and sometimes vaporizing of the bodies involved in the impacts. Due to fractionation during melting and vaporization,…
Rocky planets both in and outside of our solar system are observed to have a range of core-mass fractions (CMFs). Imperfect collisions can preferentially strip mantle material from a planet, changing its CMF, and are therefore thought to be…
Late accretion is a process that strongly modulated surface geomorphic and geochemical features of Mercury. Yet, the fate of the impactors and their effects on Mercury's surface through the bombardment epoch are not clear. Using Monte-Carlo…
Planetary formation models predict the existence of massive terrestrial planets and experiments are now being designed that should succeed in discovering them and measuring their masses and radii. We calculate internal structures of planets…
We investigate mantle stripping giant impacts (GI) between super-Earths with masses between 1 M$_{\oplus}$ and 20 M$_{\oplus}$. We infer new scaling laws for the mass of the largest fragment and its iron mass fraction, as well as updated…
We have examined the fate of impact ejecta liberated from the surface of Mercury due to impacts by comets or asteroids, in order to study (1) meteorite transfer to Earth, and (2) re-accumulation of an expelled mantle in giant-impact…
Planetary systems with sufficiently small orbital spacings can experience planetary mergers and ejections. The branching ratio of mergers vs ejections depends sensitively on the treatment of planetary close encounters. Previous works have…