Related papers: Earth and Mars interior structures set by re-melti…
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…
Current theories suggest that on Earth and, possibly, on other terrestrial planets early in their history, the first continental crust may has been produced by direct melting of hydrated peridotite. However, the conditions, mechanisms and…
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…
This work describes new dynamical simulations of terrestrial planet formation. The simulations started at the protoplanetary disk stage, when planetesimals formed and accreted into protoplanets, and continued past the late stage of giant…
Magmatism and volcanism transfer carbon from the solid Earth into the climate system. This transfer may be modulated by the glacial/interglacial cycling of water between oceans and continental ice sheets, which alters the surface loading of…
Understanding the concept of habitability is related to an evolutionary knowledge of the particular planet-in-question. Additional indications so-called "systemic aspects" of the planetary system as a whole governs a particular planet's…
Three principal concepts regarding lunar formation have been examined: the accretion hypothesis, the mega-impact theory, and the multi-impact model. The multi-impact model amalgamates the salient facets of the mega-impact theory and the…
The evidence for abundant liquid water on early Mars despite the faint young Sun is a long-standing problem in planetary research. Here we present new ab initio spectroscopic and line-by-line climate calculations of the warming potential of…
Similarities in the non-mass dependent isotopic composition of refractory elements with the bulk silicate Earth suggest that both the Earth and the Moon formed from the same material reservoir. On the other hand, the Moon's volatile…
The formation of gullies on Mars has often been attributed to the melting of (sub)surface water ice. However, melting-based hypotheses generally overlook key processes: (1) sublimation cooling by latent heat absorption, (2) the…
The low temperatures and high ultraviolet (UV) radiation levels at the surface of Mars today currently preclude the survival of life anywhere except perhaps in limited subsurface niches. Several ideas for making the martian surface more…
Glacial cycles redistribute water between oceans and continents causing pressure changes in the upper mantle, with consequences for melting of Earth's interior. Using Plio-Pleistocene sea-level variations as a forcing function, theoretical…
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 presence of valleys on ancient terrains of Mars suggest that liquid water flowed on the martian surface 3.8 billion years ago or before. The above-freezing temperatures required to explain valley formation could have been transient, in…
What was the nature of the Late Hesperian climate? Warm and wet or cold and dry? Formulated this way the question leads to an apparent paradox since both options seem implausible. A warm and wet climate would have produced extensive fluvial…
Observations and meteorites indicate that the Martian materials are enigmatically distributed within the inner solar system. A mega impact on Mars creating a Martian hemispheric dichotomy and the Martian moons can potentially eject Martian…
This paper is the first of a two companion papers presenting a theoretical and experimental study of the evolution of crystallizing magma oceans in planetesimals. We aim to understand the behavior of crystals formed in a convective magma…
The early thermal evolution of Moon has been numerically simulated to understand the magnitude of the impact induced heating and the initially stored thermal energy of the accreting Moonlets. The main objective of the present study is to…
The atmosphere of a terrestrial planet that is replenished with secondary gases should have accumulated hydrogen-rich gas from its protoplanetary disk. Although a giant impact blows off a large fraction of the primordial atmosphere of a…
The presence of highly siderophile elements in Earth's mantle indicates that a small percentage of Earth's mass was delivered after the last giant impact in a stage of 'late accretion.' There is ongoing debate about the nature of…