Related papers: Impact-induced Vaporization During Accretion of Pl…
Collisions that induce melting and vaporization can have a substantial effect on the thermal and geochemical evolution of planets. However, the thermodynamics of major minerals are not well known at the extreme conditions attained during…
We consider planets composed of water ice and rock, located far from a central star. In an earlier study, computing the growth of planets by continuous accretion, we found that a large fraction of the ice evaporates upon accretion, creating…
During planet formation, numerous small impacting bodies result in cratering impacts on large target bodies. A fraction of the target surface is eroded, while a fraction of the impactor material accretes onto the surface. These fractions…
The primary epoch of planetary accretion concludes with giant impacts - highly energetic collisions between proto-planets that can play a key role in shaping a planet's inventory of volatile elements. Previous work has shown that single…
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…
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…
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…
Earth likely acquired much of its inventory of volatile elements during the main stage of its formation. Some of Earth's proto-atmosphere must therefore have survived the giant impacts, collisions between planet-sized bodies, that dominate…
The final stage of gas giant formation involves accreting gas from the parent protoplanetary disk. In general, the infalling gas likely approaches a free-fall velocity, creating an accretion shock, leading to strong shock heating and…
During the final stage of planetary formation, different formation pathways of planetary embryos could significantly influence the observed variations in planetary densities. Of the approximately 5,000 exoplanets identified to date, a…
Terrestrial planets, with silicate mantles and metallic cores, are likely to obtain water and carbon compounds during accretion. Here I examine the conditions that allow early formation of a surface water ocean (simultaneous with cooling to…
To investigate impact vaporization for planetary atmosphere formation, we have studied the thermodynamic state generated by the shock wave due to a high-velocity impact, called the shock field. We have carried out iSALE simulations for…
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…
Silicon and Mg in differentiated rocky bodies exhibit heavy isotope enrichments that have been attributed to evaporation of partially or entirely molten planetesimals. We evaluate the mechanisms of planetesimal evaporation in the early…
Planets grow via the collisional accretion of small bodies in a protoplanetary disk. Such small bodies feel strong gas drag and their orbits are significantly affected by the gas flow and atmospheric structure around the planet. We…
Proto-planets embedded in their natal disks acquire hot envelopes as they grow and accrete solids. This ensures that the material they accrete - pebbles, as well as (small) planetesimals - will vaporize to enrich their atmospheres.…
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…
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…
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…
During their formation, planets form large, hot atmospheres due to the ongoing accretion of solids. It has been customary to assume that all solids end up at the center constituting a "core" of refractory materials, whereas the envelope…