Abstract
Jupiter and Saturn formed in a few million years (ref. 1) from a gas-dominated protoplanetary disk, and were susceptible to gas-driven migration of their orbits on timescales of only ∼100,000 years (ref. 2). Hydrodynamic simulations show that these giant planets can undergo a two-stage, inward-then-outward, migration3,4,5. The terrestrial planets finished accreting much later6, and their characteristics, including Mars' small mass, are best reproduced by starting from a planetesimal disk with an outer edge at about one astronomical unit from the Sun7,8 (1 au is the Earth–Sun distance). Here we report simulations of the early Solar System that show how the inward migration of Jupiter to 1.5 au, and its subsequent outward migration, lead to a planetesimal disk truncated at 1 au; the terrestrial planets then form from this disk over the next 30–50 million years, with an Earth/Mars mass ratio consistent with observations. Scattering by Jupiter initially empties but then repopulates the asteroid belt, with inner-belt bodies originating between 1 and 3 au and outer-belt bodies originating between and beyond the giant planets. This explains the significant compositional differences across the asteroid belt. The key aspect missing from previous models of terrestrial planet formation is the substantial radial migration of the giant planets, which suggests that their behaviour is more similar to that inferred for extrasolar planets than previously thought.
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Acknowledgements
K.J.W. and A.M. were supported by the Helmholtz Alliances ‘Planetary Evolution and Life’ programme. S.N.R and A.M.M. were supported by the EPOV and PNP programmes of CNRS. D.P.O’B. was supported by the NASA PG&G programme. A.M.M. was also supported by the NASA post-doctoral programme and the Goddard Center for Astrobiology. We thank the Isaac Newton Institute DDP programme for hosting some of us at the initial stage of the project; we also thank J. Chambers for comments that improved the text. Computations were done on the CRIMSON Beowulf cluster at OCA.
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K.J.W. managed the simulations and analysis and was the primary writer of the manuscript. A.M. initiated the project, updated and tested software, ran and analysed simulations, and wrote significant parts of the manuscript. S.N.R. helped initiate the project, advised on simulations and contributed substantially to the manuscript. D.P.O’B. helped initiate the project and assisted in writing. A.M.M. assisted in software updates and in writing.
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Walsh, K., Morbidelli, A., Raymond, S. et al. A low mass for Mars from Jupiter’s early gas-driven migration. Nature 475, 206–209 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10201
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10201
Rodney Bartlett
exoJupiter and the Kuiper Belt
"Pluto: Up Close and Personal" by S. Alan Stern ("Astronomy" - July 2015) says "Some (of the Kuiper Belt objects orbiting beyond Neptune) have densities that point to mostly icy interiors, while others have densities so high they essentially must be all rock. (The degree of diversity in the Kuiper Belt) was, and remains to this day, surprising."
This diversity might be explained by thinking of Jupiter's proposed migration inwards toward the Sun during the early years of the solar system.
"In the same way, as Jupiter moved away from the sun (because of Saturn's influence), the planet nudged the asteroid belt back inward and into its familiar location between the modern orbits of Mars and Jupiter. And because Jupiter traveled much farther out than it had been before, it reached the region of space where icy objects are found. The massive planet deflected some of these icy objects toward the sun and into the asteroid belt.
"The end result is that the asteroid belt has rocky objects from the inner solar system and icy objects from the outer solar system," says (co-author Kevin Walsh). "Our model puts the right material in the right places, for what we see in the asteroid belt today."
This "Grand Tack" model was proposed by an international team in a Nature paper posted on June 5, 2011 and the above quote is from http://www.nasa.gov/topics/... ... piter.html
Could the outer solar system have encountered a celestial body thousands of years ago which mixed icy and rocky bodies in the Kuiper Belt in the same way that Jupiter mixed icy and rocky bodies in the asteroid belt?
Scholz?s Star and its companion brown dwarf likely passed within the outer reaches of the Sun?s Oort Cloud 70,000 years ago (and are now 20 light years away), but scientists don?t believe the encounter would have sent comets shooting into the solar system.
NASA/Michael Osadciw (University of Rochester)
If this star had practically no effect on the Oort Cloud, it could never have exerted the substantial effect of mixing rocks and ice in the far more distant (from its point of view) Kuiper Belt. So a different celestial body must be responsible. Could it be an undiscovered Planet X that takes thousands of years to orbit our star; and possibly accounts for perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune that little Pluto, and its Kuiper companions, apparently can't? Or perhaps a wandering planet ejected from another stellar system (an exo-Jupiter)?
ExoJupiter may have been rocky (not a gas giant) or may have had moons. Migration towards our Sun would then result in collisions which could tilt Uranus on its side, give Neptune's moon Triton a retrograde orbit (possibly even transfer Triton to Neptune from exoJupiter), and deposit rocky material into the icy Kuiper Belt.