Solar System

Abstract: The ever-increasing number of discoveries of new planets beyond our solar system is invigorating the quest for new knowledge and understanding of the birth of stars and planets. "Protostars and Planets V" builds on the latest results from recent advances in ground and space-based astronomy and in numerical computing techniques to offer the most detailed and up-to-date picture of star and planet formation - including the formation and early evolution of our own solar system. This is an indispensable resource for anyone with an interest in astronomy, planetary science, the study of meteorites, and the history of the universe.

Abstract: The petrology record on the Moon suggests that a cataclysmic spike in the cratering rate occurred approximately 700 million years after the planets formed; this event is known as the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). Planetary formation theories cannot naturally account for an intense period of planetesimal bombardment so late in Solar System history. Several models have been proposed to explain a late impact spike, but none of them has been set within a self-consistent framework of Solar System evolution. Here we propose that the LHB was triggered by the rapid migration of the giant planets, which occurred after a long quiescent period. During this burst of migration, the planetesimal disk outside the orbits of the planets was destabilized, causing a sudden massive delivery of planetesimals to the inner Solar System. The asteroid belt was also strongly perturbed, with these objects supplying a significant fraction of the LHB impactors in accordance with recent geochemical evidence. Our model not only naturally explains the LHB, but also reproduces the observational constraints of the outer Solar System.

Abstract: The composition of the primitive mantle derived here shows that Earth was assembled from material that shows many of the same chemical fractionation processes as chondritic meteorites. These processes occurred at the initial stage of the solar system formation, under conditions thought to be present in the solar nebula. But the stable isotope record excludes chondritic meteorites as the ‘building blocks’ of Earth. Meteorites formed in local environments separated from that part of the inner solar system where much of the material forming the terrestrial planets was sourced.

Abstract: We define a model of the compositon and abundances of grains and gases in molecular cloud cores and accretion disks around young stars by employing a wide range of astronomical data and theory, the composition of primitive bodies in the solar system, and solar elemental abundances. In the coldest portions of these objects, we propose that the major grain species include olivine (Fe, Mg, 2SiO4), orthopyroxene (Fe, Mg, SiO3), volatile and refractory organics, water ice, troilite (FeS), and metallic iron. This compositional model differs from almost all previous models of the interstellar medium (ISM) by having organics as the major condensed C species, rather than graphite; by including troilite as a major grain species; and by specifying the mineralogical composition of the condensed silicates. Using a combination of laboratory measurements of optical constants and asymptotic theory, we derive values of the real and imaginary indices of refraction of these grain species over a wavelength range that runs from the vacuum ultraviolet (UV) to the radio domain. The above information on grain properties is used to estimate the Rosseland mean opacity of the grains and their monochromatic opacity.