Related papers: Metal-silicate mixing in planetesimal collisions
In their model for the origin of the parent bodies of iron meteorites, Bottke et al proposed differentiated planetesimals that were formed in the region of 1-2 AU during the first 1.5 Myr, as the parent bodies, and suggested that these…
In the late stage of terrestrial planet formation, planets are predicted to undergo pairwise collisions known as giant impacts. Here we present a high-resolution database of giant impacts for differentiated colliding bodies of iron-silicate…
Hydrous minerals are found on the surfaces of asteroids, but their origin is not clear. If their origin is endogenic, the hydrous minerals that were formed in the inner part of a planetesimal (or parent body) should come out on to the…
We give a brief introduction to smoothed particle hydrodynamics methods for continuum mechanics. Specifically, we present our 3D SPH code to simulate and analyze collisions of asteroids consisting of two types of material: basaltic rock and…
The pathway to forming the iron-rich planet Mercury remains mysterious. Mercury's core makes up 70% of the planetary mass, which implies a significant enrichment of iron relative to silicates, while its mantle is strongly depleted in…
We investigate the consequences of non-ideal mixing between silicate, iron metal, and hydrogen for the structures of the cores of sub-Neptunes with implications for super-Earths, warm Neptunes, and ice giants. A method of extrapolating what…
Impacts between planetesimals have largely been ruled out as a heat source in the early Solar System, by calculations that show them to be an inefficient heat source and unlikely to cause global heating. However, the long-term, localized…
Mercury's high uncompressed mass density suggests that the planet is largely composed of iron, either bound within metal (mainly Fe-Ni), or iron sulfide. Recent results from the MESSENGER mission to Mercury imply a low temperature history…
Current lunar origin scenarios suggest that Earth's Moon may have resulted from the merger of two (or more) smaller moonlets. Dynamical studies of multiple moons find that these satellite systems are not stable, resulting in moonlet…
Because of the high energies involved, giant impacts that occur during planetary accretion cause large degrees of melting. The depth of melting in the target body after each collision determines the pressure and temperature conditions of…
We improved the algorithm presented in Rubie et al. (2015) to model the chemical evolution of Earth driven by iron/silicate differentiation during the planet's accretion. The pressure at which the equilibration occurs during a giant impact…
Giant planet migration is an important phenomenon in the evolution of planetary systems. Recent works have shown that giant planet growth and migration can shape the asteroid belt, but these works have not considered interactions between…
Phyllosilicates are hydrous minerals formed by interaction between rock and liquid water and are commonly found in meteorites originating in the asteroid belt. Collisions between asteroids contribute to zodiacal dust, which therefore…
Undifferentiated asteroids, particularly the parent bodies of carbon-rich chondrite groups, might be promising candidates for future space resource utilization due to their primitive composition and potential to host valuable metals and…
The bulk chemical compositions of planets are uncertain, even for major elements such as Mg and Si. This is due to the fact that the samples available for study all originate from relatively shallow depths. Comparison of the stable isotope…
As differentiated planetesimals cool, their cores can solidify from the outside-in, as evidenced by paleomagnetic measurements and cooling rate estimates of iron meteorites. The details of outside-in solidification and fate of residual core…
In the standard scenario of planet formation, terrestrial planets, ice giants, and cores of gas giants are formed by the accumulation of planetesimals. However, there are few N-body simulation studies of planetesimal accretion that…
In the giant impact theory for lunar origin, the Moon forms from material ejected by the impact into an Earth-orbiting disk. Here we report the initial results from a silicate melt-vapor equilibrium chemistry model for such impact-generated…
Recent observations of rocky super-Earths have revealed an apparent wider distribution of Fe/Mg ratios, or core to mantle ratios, than the planets in our Solar System. This study aims to understand how much of the chemical diversity in the…
The Chelyabinsk meteorite is a highly shocked, low porosity, ordinary chondrite, probably similar to S- or Q-type asteroids. Therefore, nanoindentation experiments on this meteorite allow us to obtain key data to understand the physical…