Related papers: Mercury's Protoplanetary Mass
One of the main scenarios of planet formation is the core accretion model where a massive core forms first and then accretes a gaseous envelope. This core forms by accreting solids, either planetesimals, or pebbles. A key constraint in this…
More than 80 giant planets are known by mass and radius. Their interior structure in terms of core mass, number of layers, and composition however is still poorly known. An overview is presented about the core mass Mcore and envelope mass…
During the late stage of planet formation when Mars-size cores appear, interactions among planetary cores can excite their orbital eccentricities, speed their merges and thus sculpture the final architecture of planet systems. This series…
Mercury, due to its close location to the Sun, is surrounded by an environment whose conditions may be considered as "extreme" in the entire Solar System. Both solar wind and radiation are stronger with respect to other Solar System bodies,…
Chondritic meteorites constitute the most ancient rock record available in the laboratory to study the formation of the solar system and its planets. Detailed investigations of their mineralogy, petrography, chemistry and isotopic…
The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition and potential habitability of these objects. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their…
The accretion of icy and rocky solids during the formation of a gas giant planet is poorly constrained and challenging to model. Refractory species, like sulfur, are only present in solids in the protoplanetary disk where planets form.…
Pebbles of millimeter sizes are abundant in protoplanetary discs around young stars. Chondrules inside primitive meteorites - formed by melting of dust aggregate pebbles or in impacts between planetesimals - have similar sizes. The role of…
We describe the current state of knowledge about Mercury's interior structure. We review the available observational constraints, including mass, size, density, gravity field, spin state, composition, and tidal response. These data enable…
Chondrules are millimeter-sized spherules that dominate primitive meteorites (chondrites) originating from the asteroid belt. The incorporation of chondrules into asteroidal bodies must be an important step in planet formation, but the…
The main goal of this work is to study element ratios that are important for the formation of planets of different masses. We study potential correlations between the existence of planetary companions and the relative elemental abundances…
High resolution images of Mercury's surface, from the MESSENGER spacecraft, reveal many bright deposits associated with irregular, shallow, rimless depressions whose origins were attributed to volatile-related activity, but absent…
In the core accretion hypothesis, giant planets form by gas accretion onto solid protoplanetary cores. The minimum (or critical) core mass to form a gas giant is typically quoted as 10 Earth masses. The actual value depends on several…
The nucleosynthesis and ejection of radioactive $^{26}$Al (t$_{1/2} \sim$ 0.72\,Myr) and $^{60}$Fe, (t$_{1/2} \sim$ 2.5\,Myr) into the interstellar medium is dominated by the stellar winds of massive stars and supernova type II explosions.…
The Core Accretion model is widely accepted as the primary mechanism for forming planets up to a few Jupiter masses. However, the formation of super-massive planets remains a subject of debate, as their formation via the Core Accretion…
The age of iron meteorites implies that accretion of protoplanets began during the first millions of years of the solar system. Due to the heat generated by 26Al decay, many early protoplanets were fully differentiated with an igneous crust…
To first order, the Earth as well as other rocky planets in the Solar System and rocky exoplanets orbiting other stars, are refractory pieces of the stellar nebula out of which they formed. To estimate the chemical composition of rocky…
A rapidly growing body of observational results suggests that planet formation takes place preferentially at high metallicity. In the core accretion model of planet formation this is expected because heavy elements are needed to form the…
Context: Around 30 per cent of the observed exoplanets that orbit M dwarf stars are gas giants that are more massive than Jupiter. These planets are prime candidates for formation by disc instability. Aims: We want to determine the…
The MERTIS (MErcury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer) instrument onboard the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission will provide mid-infrared data, which will be crucial to characterize the surface mineralogy of Mercury. In order to…