相关论文: The formation of the Martian moons

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…

Mars shares many similarities and characteristics to Earth including various geological features and planetary structure. The remarkable bimodal distribution of elevations in both planets is one of the most striking global features…

Looking at the Mars-solar wind interaction on a larger spatial scale than the near Mars region, the planet can be seen as an ion source interacting with the solar wind, in many ways like a comet, but with a smaller ion source region. Here…

Evidence of mutually inclined planetary orbits has been reported for giant planets these last years. Here we aim to study the impact of eccentric and inclined massive giant planets on the terrestrial planet formation process, and…

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…

It is generally accepted that silicate-metal (`rocky') planet formation relies on coagulation from a mixture of sub-Mars sized planetary embryos and (smaller) planetesimals that dynamically emerge from the evolving circum-solar disc in the…

Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…

The outer giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, pose a challenge to theories of planet formation. They exist in a region of the Solar System where long dynamical timescales and a low primordial density of material would have conspired to make…

Simulations of the moon-forming impact suggest that most of the lunar material derives from the impactor rather than the Earth. Measurements of lunar samples, however, reveal an oxygen isotope composition that is indistinguishable from…

Giant planet formation process is still not completely understood. The current most accepted paradigm, the core instability model, explains several observed properties of the solar system's giant planets but, to date, has faced difficulties…

Remnant planetesimals might have played an important role in reducing the orbital eccentricities of the terrestrial planets after their formation via giant impacts. However, the population and the size distribution of remnant planetesimals…

Mercury's core mass fraction (CMF) is ~0.7, more than double that of the other rocky planets in the solar system, which have CMFs of ~0.3. The origin of Mercury's large, iron-rich core remains unknown. Adding to this mystery, an elusive…

Evidence in the Solar System suggests that the giant planets underwent an epoch of radial migration that was very rapid, with an e-folding timescale shorter than 1~Myr. It is probable that the cause of this migration was that the giant…

The Pluto-Charon system has come into sharper focus following the fly by of New Horizons. We use N-body simulations to probe the unique dynamical history of this binary dwarf planet system. We follow the evolution of the debris disc that…

Confirmation of the first exomoon remains elusive. Although several exomoon candidates exist around single stars, there are currently no candidates around circumbinary planets (CBPs). Most circumbinary planets are thought to form far from…

The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…

Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the formation process of satellite systems, and relatively large moons are thought to be born in circumplanetary disks. Making a single-moon system is known to be more difficult than…

Giant impacts were common in the early evolution of the Solar System, and it is possible that Venus also experienced an impact. A giant impact on Venus could have affected its rotation rate and possibly its thermal evolution. In this work,…

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…

This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…