Download or read book Role of Giant Impacts in Planet Formation and Internal Structure written by Robert Andrew Marcus and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013 2022 written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-01-30 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, planetary science has seen a tremendous growth in new knowledge. Deposits of water ice exist at the Moon's poles. Discoveries on the surface of Mars point to an early warm wet climate, and perhaps conditions under which life could have emerged. Liquid methane rain falls on Saturn's moon Titan, creating rivers, lakes, and geologic landscapes with uncanny resemblances to Earth's. Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022 surveys the current state of knowledge of the solar system and recommends a suite of planetary science flagship missions for the decade 2013-2022 that could provide a steady stream of important new discoveries about the solar system. Research priorities defined in the report were selected through a rigorous review that included input from five expert panels. NASA's highest priority large mission should be the Mars Astrobiology Explorer Cacher (MAX-C), a mission to Mars that could help determine whether the planet ever supported life and could also help answer questions about its geologic and climatic history. Other projects should include a mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa and its subsurface ocean, and the Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission to investigate that planet's interior structure, atmosphere, and composition. For medium-size missions, Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022 recommends that NASA select two new missions to be included in its New Frontiers program, which explores the solar system with frequent, mid-size spacecraft missions. If NASA cannot stay within budget for any of these proposed flagship projects, it should focus on smaller, less expensive missions first. Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022 suggests that the National Science Foundation expand its funding for existing laboratories and establish new facilities as needed. It also recommends that the program enlist the participation of international partners. This report is a vital resource for government agencies supporting space science, the planetary science community, and the public.
Download or read book Planet Formation and Evolution in Our Solar System and Beyond written by John Brooks Biersteker and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discovery of thousands of exoplanets in recent decades has revealed a remarkable diversity of planetary system architectures, including entire classes of planets for which there is no solar system analog. In particular, the Kepler mission has shown that planets intermediate in size between Earth and Neptune with orbital periods less than 100 days are abundant in our galaxy. Concurrently, spacecraft missions to small primitive bodies in our solar system have yielded valuable insights into conditions in the early solar system. This thesis addresses questions in planet formation theory arising from both sets of observations. We begin with an investigation into the observed diversity of super-Earth bulk densities, which range from being consistent with a terrestrial composition to requiring an extended hydrogen-helium (H/He) envelope comprising several percent of the planet's mass. Giant impacts are expected to play a role in the formation of these worlds. We examine the thermal consequences of such an impact, and find that atmospheric loss from these effects can significantly exceed that caused by the previously considered process of mechanical shocks for H/He atmospheres. Specifically, the energy released can produce a period of sustained, rapid mass loss through a Parker wind, partly or completely eroding the envelope. The degree of loss depends on planetary properties and the stochastic details of the impact, making giant impacts an attractive explanation for the observed diversity of super-Earth compositions. The final assembly of the terrestrial planets in our solar system likely also concluded with a period of giant impacts. We explore the significance of post-impact thermal losses for terrestrial planet atmospheres in different evolutionary states, finding that H/He envelopes are unlikely to survive the giant impact phase, but that secondary, outgassed envelopes with higher mean molecular weights may be retained. Atmospheric constituents with high mean molecular weights may be lost, however, if they are mixed into a predominantly H/He envelope. Next, this thesis examines magnetic measurements of comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko (67P) and their implications for the early solar system environment. Specifically, the remanent magnetization of solar system bodies reflects their accretion mechanism, the space environment in which they formed, and their subsequent geological evolution. We show that the Rosetta magnetometry requires very low bulk magnetizations of cometary material on spatial scales >/=10 cm. If 67P formed during the lifetime of the solar nebula and has not undergone significant subsequent alteration, this low magnetization is inconsistent with its formation from the gentle gravitational collapse of a cloud of millimeter-sized pebbles in a background magnetic field >/~3 [mu]T. This constraint is compatible with theories of magnetically driven evolution of protoplanetary disks. Lastly, this thesis presents the first attempt to determine an exoplanet's oblateness and obliquity through the use of changes in the transit depth caused by the spin precession of an oblate planet. Determination of these quantities would provide insights into a planet's internal structure and formation history. Using Kepler photometry, we examine the brown dwarf Kepler-39b and the warm Saturn Kepler-427b. We do not usefully constrain the oblateness of Kepler-39b, but we find transit depth variations for Kepler-427b at 90% significance consistent with a precession period of 5.5 years and an oblateness comparable to solar system gas giants.
Download or read book Planetary Giant Impacts written by Jacob Kegerreis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-24 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on 3D smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations performed with unprecedented high resolution, this book examines the giant impacts that dominate many planets’ late accretion and evolution. The numerical methods developed are now publicly available, greatly facilitating future studies of planetary impacts in our solar system and exoplanetary systems. The book focuses on four main topics: (1) The development of new methods to construct initial conditions as well as a hydrodynamical simulation code to evolve them, using 1000 times more simulation particles than the previous standard. (2) The numerical convergence of giant impact simulations -- standard-resolution simulations fail to converge on even bulk properties like the post-impact rotation period. (3) The collision thought to have knocked over the planet Uranus causing it to spin on its side. (4) The erosion of atmospheres by giant impacts onto terrestrial planets, and the first full 3D simulations of collisions in this regime.
Download or read book Giant Impacts During Planet Formation written by Randi L. Cohen and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Formation Evolution and Dynamics of Young Solar Systems written by Martin Pessah and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book's interdisciplinary scope aims at bridging various communities: 1) cosmochemists, who study meteoritic samples from our own solar system, 2) (sub-) millimetre astronomers, who measure the distribution of dust and gas of star-forming regions and planet-forming discs, 3) disc modellers, who describe the complex photo-chemical structure of parametric discs to fit these to observation, 4) computational astrophysicists, who attempt to decipher the dynamical structure of magnetised gaseous discs, and the effects the resulting internal structure has on the aerodynamic re-distribution of embedded solids, 5) theoreticians in planet formation theory, who aim to piece it all together eventually arriving at a coherent holistic picture of the architectures of planetary systems discovered by 6) the exoplanet observers, who provide us with unprecedented samples of exoplanet worlds. Combining these diverse fields the book sheds light onto the riddles that research on planet formation is currently confronted with, and paves the way for a comprehensive understanding of the formation, evolution, and dynamics of young solar systems. The chapters ‘Chondrules – Ubiquitous Chondritic Solids Tracking the Evolution of the Solar Protoplanetary Disk’, ‘Dust Coagulation with Porosity Evolution’ and ‘The Emerging Paradigm of Pebble Accretion’ are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.
Download or read book Astrophysics of Planet Formation written by Philip J. Armitage and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concise and self-contained, this textbook gives a graduate-level introduction to the physical processes that shape planetary systems, covering all stages of planet formation. Writing for readers with undergraduate backgrounds in physics, astronomy, and planetary science, Armitage begins with a description of the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks, moves on to the formation of planetesimals, rocky, and giant planets, and concludes by describing the gravitational and gas dynamical evolution of planetary systems. He provides a self-contained account of the modern theory of planet formation and, for more advanced readers, carefully selected references to the research literature, noting areas where research is ongoing. The second edition has been thoroughly revised to include observational results from NASA's Kepler mission, ALMA observations and the JUNO mission to Jupiter, new theoretical ideas including pebble accretion, and an up-to-date understanding in areas such as disk evolution and planet migration.
Download or read book Exoplanet Science Strategy written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has delivered remarkable discoveries in the study of exoplanets. Hand-in-hand with these advances, a theoretical understanding of the myriad of processes that dictate the formation and evolution of planets has matured, spurred on by the avalanche of unexpected discoveries. Appreciation of the factors that make a planet hospitable to life has grown in sophistication, as has understanding of the context for biosignatures, the remotely detectable aspects of a planet's atmosphere or surface that reveal the presence of life. Exoplanet Science Strategy highlights strategic priorities for large, coordinated efforts that will support the scientific goals of the broad exoplanet science community. This report outlines a strategic plan that will answer lingering questions through a combination of large, ambitious community-supported efforts and support for diverse, creative, community-driven investigator research.
Download or read book Saturn in the 21st Century written by Kevin H. Baines and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed overview of Saturn's formation, evolution and structure written by eminent planetary scientists involved in the Cassini Orbiter mission.
Download or read book The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems written by Niraj K. Inamdar and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kepler space observatory and other surveys have revealed thousands of planets and planetary systems that look significantly different from our own. In particular, the preponderance of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes (planets with radii smaller than Neptune's but larger than Earth's) at short orbital radii has challenged planet formation theories developed in the context of our own Solar System. How and where these planets form remains an outstanding question. Given the large frequency with which such planets occur around other stars, understanding the formation pathways of these planets has the potential to reveal dominant mechanisms for planet formation and evolution and to place our own Solar System within a broader context. The purpose of this thesis is to address and develop frameworks by which these questions can be answered. The thesis is comprised of two parts. In Part I, we consider the question of how and where close-in exoplanets formed. We do this in two ways. First, we use that fact that many close-in super-Earths and mini-Neptunes possess gaseous envelopes that comprise several percent or more of the total planet mass in order to construct a self-consistent planet formation history that accounts for core accretion, thermal evolution, and dynamical interactions during the core assembly process via giant impacts. We find that envelope masses accreted from the gas disc by planetary embryos are typically much smaller than those inferred for many exoplanets, and that the envelope mass fraction is further reduced substantially during the assembly phase when embryos merge. Fully assembled planets can accrete observed envelope masses from the residual disc only if energy exchange between the envelope and the underlying core is totally inhibited. It is therefore very unlikely that such planets formed at their observed semimajor axes, but instead formed further out and migrated inwards. Second, we consider the late-stage evolution of exoplanets after gas disc dissipation in order to explain the bulk structural diversity of observed super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. Whereas naive application of core accretion models suggests a narrow mass-radius relationship for these exoplanets, the population possesses a great deal of diversity in mean density. While photoevaporative mass loss from the host star is the most-commonly invoked explanation for this diversity, we use the fact that many exoplanetary systems are in tightly packed orbital configurations to propose instead that late-stage collisions are at least in part responsible for the observed diversity. We infer envelope mass fractions for planets in the literature whose masses and radii have been measured, and on the basis of this, we identify multiplanet systems whose bulk structural diversity favors late-stage impacts as opposed to photoevaporative devolatilization. In Part II, we turn our attention to the formation and evolution of our own Solar System. We do this within the context of NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. OSIRIS-REx, which launches in September 2016, will arrive at the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu in 2019 with the objective of constraining its composition, orbit, and other bulk properties. In order to better understand the composition of Bennu, an instrument designed to measure its elemental abundances via X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy called REXIS was developed and built at MIT. In this part of the thesis, we investigate the ability of REXIS to constrain the composition of Bennu via fluorescence spectroscopy, as well as its potential to place Bennu within an analogue meteorite class. We carry out our analysis by modeling Solar X-ray activity and the X-ray fluorescence from Bennu, as well as by simulating data product and analysis from the instrument in order to predict REXIS's ability to carry out its goal of contextualizing Bennu within the asteroid and meteorite population.
Download or read book The Juno Mission written by Scott Bolton and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Juno mission to Jupiter is one of the most ambitious, daring and challenging solar system exploration missions ever conceived. Next to the Sun, Jupiter is the largest object in our solar system. As such, it is both a record and driver of the formation and evolution of the planets -- no other object in our solar system can tell us more about the origin of planetary systems. Understanding the details of giant planet formation, structure, composition and powerful magnetospheric environment required a new perspective close up and over the poles of Jupiter -- an orbit never before attempted. Juno was specifically designed for this challenge, entering into the harshest planetary environment known in the solar system. This volume describes the mission design, scientific strategies and instrument payload that enable Juno to peer deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere and reveal the fundamental process of the formation and early evolution of our solar system. In these papers, the Juno instrument teams describe their investigations, which include gravity radio science, microwave radiometers, magnetometers, an infrared imager auroral mapper, an ultraviolet imager and spectrograph, a visible light imager known as JunoCam, low and high energy particle detectors and plasma wave and radio electromagnetic sensors. The articles also describe a radiation monitoring experiment and the extensive laboratory measurements undertaken to assist with the analysis and interpretation of Juno’s pioneering investigation of Jupiter’s deep atmosphere. Originally published in Space Science Reviews, Volume 213, Issue 1-4, November 2017
Download or read book Protostars and Planets VI written by Henrik Beuther and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceedings of a conference held in Heidelberg, Germany, July 15-20, 2013.
Download or read book Planetary Formation written by Celestial Angell and published by Dedona Publishing. This book was released on with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Planetary formation is a captivating process that unfolds over millions to billions of years, sculpting the celestial bodies that populate our cosmos. It begins within the swirling embrace of a protoplanetary disk, a vast expanse of gas and dust leftover from the birth of a new star. Within this cosmic crucible, tiny grains of dust collide and coalesce, forming larger and larger aggregates known as planetesimals. Through the relentless pull of gravity, these planetesimals grow into protoplanets, embryonic worlds with the potential to one day become full-fledged planets. As these protoplanets continue to accrete material from the surrounding disk, they undergo a dynamic interplay of gravitational interactions, collisions, and mergers. Some protoplanets may grow to become gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn, while others may evolve into terrestrial planets, such as Earth and Mars. The process of planetary differentiation further shapes these nascent worlds, as heavier elements sink toward their cores, creating layered structures with distinct compositions and properties.
Download or read book The Early Earth written by James Badro and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Early Earth: Accretion and Differentiation provides a multidisciplinary overview of the state of the art in understanding the formation and primordial evolution of the Earth. The fundamental structure of the Earth as we know it today was inherited from the initial conditions 4.56 billion years ago as a consequence of planetesimal accretion, large impacts among planetary objects, and planetary-scale differentiation. The evolution of the Earth from a molten ball of metal and magma to the tectonically active, dynamic, habitable planet that we know today is unique among the terrestrial planets, and understanding the earliest processes that led to Earth’s current state is the essence of this volume. Important results have emerged from a wide range of disciplines including cosmochemistry, geochemistry, experimental petrology, experimental and theoretical mineral physics and geodynamics. The topics in this volume include: Condensation of primitive objects in the solar nebula, planetary building blocks Early and late accretion and planetary dynamic modeling Primordial differentiation, core formation, Magma Ocean evolution and crystallization This volume will be a valuable resource for graduate students, academics, and researchers in the fields of geophysics, geochemistry, cosmochemistry, and planetary science.
Download or read book Formation of Multiple Giant Planets and Their Impact on the Protoplanetary Disc Structure written by Camille Arantxa Bergez-Casalou and published by . This book was released on 2022* with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Introduction to the Solar System written by David A. Rothery and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ongoing advances in Solar System exploration continue to reveal its splendour and diversity in remarkable detail. This undergraduate-level textbook presents fascinating descriptions and colour images of the bodies in the Solar System, the processes that occur upon and within them, and their origins and evolution. It highlights important concepts and techniques in boxed summaries, while questions and exercises are embedded at appropriate points throughout the text, with full solutions provided. Written and edited by a team of practising planetary scientists, this third edition has been updated to reflect our current knowledge. It is ideal for introductory courses on the subject, and is suitable for self-study. The text is supported by online resources, hosted at www.cambridge.org/solarsystem3, which include selected figures from the book, self-assessment questions and sample tutor assignments, with outlines of suggested answers.
Download or read book Giant Planets of Our Solar System written by Patrick Irwin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-08-29 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews the current state of knowledge of the atmospheres of the four giant gaseous planets. It is the first book to contain all the latest data and background information on these planets in one handy volume. Current theories of their formation are reviewed. The book clearly explains all specialist terms, and it discusses the pros and cons of ground versus space-based observations of giant planets.
