SwRI: “Planetary Pebbles”: Building Blocks for the Planets

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Scientists Think “Planetary Pebbles” Were the Building Blocks for the Largest Planets
Southwest Research Institute | 2015 Aug 19

[img3="Planets May Leave Tracks in Dust - Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)
This artist’s concept of a young star system shows gas giants forming first, while the gas nebula is present. Southwest Research Institute scientists used computer simulations to nail down how Jupiter and Saturn evolved in our own solar system. These new calculations show that the cores of gas giants likely formed by gradually accumulating a population of planetary pebbles – icy objects about a foot in diameter. "]http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/uploaded ... 12_Med.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Researchers at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Queen’s University in Canada have unraveled the mystery of how Jupiter and Saturn likely formed. This discovery, which changes our view of how all planets might have formed, will be published in the Aug. 20 issue of Nature.

Ironically, the largest planets in the solar system likely formed first. Jupiter and Saturn, which are mostly hydrogen and helium, presumably accumulated their gasses before the solar nebula dispersed. Observations of young star systems show that the gas disks that form planets usually have lifetimes of only 1 to 10 million years, which means the gas giant planets in our solar system probably formed within this time frame. In contrast, the Earth probably took at least 30 million years to form, and may have taken as long as 100 million years. So how could Jupiter and Saturn have formed so quickly?

The most widely accepted theory for gas giant formation is the so-called core accretion model. In this model, a planet-sized core of ice and rock forms first. Then, an inflow of interstellar gas and dust attaches itself to the growing planet. However, this model has an Achilles heel; specifically, the very first step in the process. To accumulate a massive atmosphere requires a solid core roughly 10 times the mass of Earth. Yet these large objects, which are akin to Uranus and Neptune, had to have formed in only a few million years.

In the standard model of planet formation, rocky cores grow as similarly sized objects accumulate and assimilate through a process called accretion. Rocks incorporate other rocks, creating mountains; then mountains merge with other mountains, leading to city-sized objects, and so on. However, this model is unable to produce planetary cores large enough, in a short enough period of time, to explain Saturn and Jupiter. ...

Growing the gas-giant planets by the gradual accumulation of pebbles - Harold F. Levison, Katherine A. Kretke, Martin J. Duncan

• Nature 524(7565):322 (20 Aug 2015) DOI: 10.1038/nature14675

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=245474#p245474

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SwRI scientists predict that rocky planets formed from ‘pebbles’
Southwest Research Institute | 2015 Oct 26

New process explains massive differences between Earth and Mars

[img3="Southwest Research Institute scientists developed a new process in planetary formation modeling that explains the size and mass difference between the Earth and Mars. Mars is much smaller and has only 10 percent of the mass of the Earth. Conventional solar system formation models generate good analogs to Earth and Venus, but predict that Mars should be of similar-size, or even larger than Earth.
(Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL/MSSS & Wikimedia Commons)"]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ison_2.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Using a new process in planetary formation modeling, where planets grow from tiny bodies called “pebbles,” Southwest Research Institute scientists can explain why Mars is so much smaller than Earth. This same process also explains the rapid formation of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, as reported earlier this year.

“This numerical simulation actually reproduces the structure of the inner solar system, with Earth, Venus, and a smaller Mars,” said Hal Levison, an Institute scientist at the SwRI Planetary Science Directorate. He is the first author of a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) Early Edition.

The fact that Mars has only 10 percent of the mass of the Earth has been a long-standing puzzle for solar system theorists. In the standard model of planet formation, similarly sized objects accumulate and assimilate through a process called accretion; rocks incorporated other rocks, creating mountains; then mountains merged to form city-size objects, and so on. While typical accretion models generate good analogs to Earth and Venus, they predict that Mars should be of similar-size, or even larger than Earth. Additionally, these models also overestimate the overall mass of the asteroid belt. ...

However, these new models find that not all of the primordial asteroids are equally well-positioned to accrete pebbles and grow. For example, an object the size of Ceres (about 600 miles across), which is the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, would have grown very quickly near the current location of the Earth. But it would not have been able to grow effectively near the current location of Mars, or beyond, because aerodynamic drag is too weak for pebble capture to occur.

“This means that very few pebbles collide with objects near the current location of Mars. That provides a natural explanation for why it is so small,” said Kretke. “Similarly, even fewer hit objects in the asteroid belt, keeping its net mass small as well. The only place that growth was efficient was near the current location of Earth and Venus.”

“This model has huge implications for the history of the asteroid belt,” said Bottke. Previous models have predicted that the belt originally contained a couple of Earth-masses’ worth of material, meaning that planets began to grow there. The new model predicts that the asteroid belt never contained much mass in bodies like the currently observed asteroids. ...

Growing the terrestrial planets from the gradual accumulation of sub-meter sized objects - Harold F. Levison et al

• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1510.02095 > 07 Oct 2015