Our new paper (led by @izidoro_astro) -- “Planetesimal rings as the cause of the Solar System’s planetary architecture” – just came out in @NatureAstronomy !
Our model proposes that the Solar System formed from 3 rings of planetesimals
A thread
nature.com/articles/s4155…
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We are used to thinking that our system formed from a disk. Why rings instead?
Squint at the Solar System from a distance. Almost all of the mass in located 1) between Earth and Venus (rocky stuff), and 2) among the giant planets, which started off a lot closer together.
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Planets form from disks of gas and dust around young stars. The early stages – in which dust grows into pebbles, drifts and forms planetesimals – is essential in shaping the “initial conditions” for the parts with giant impacts and such.
MOJO video:
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Planetesimals are ~100 km-scale building blocks of planets. Progress in recent years (led by @AstroAndersJ) has shown they form whenever there is a strong concentration of dust/pebbles
Simulation by @jbsimon_astro:
Review: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014prpl.c…
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The DSHARP survey some amazing images of protoplanetary disks with the ALMA telescope. What you are seeing are large dust grains (or “pebbles”). Sometimes the dust distribution looks disky but often it is concentrated in rings.
almascience.eso.org/almadata/lp/DS…
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Several studies have shown that planetesimals may indeed form in rings, by simulating the evolution of dust/pebbles in gaseous disks
@AstroJoanna et al (2016) formed one ring at ~1 au
Morbidelli et al (2021) formed two rings at ~1 au and ~5 au
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016A%26A.…
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In our new model we invoke pressure bumps related to condensation fronts of silicates, water and carbon monoxide. Dust is trapped at those fronts and forms three distinct, evolving planetesimal rings.
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The inner ring can grow and match the terrestrial planets. Earth and Venus grew within the main ring, whereas Mars and Mercury’s growth was stunted as they were kicked out.
This mirrors Hansen (2009) but with a coherent backstory for the ring.
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ApJ...…
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Bonus: even growing within a narrow inner ring, Earth and Mars have statistically different feeding zones. This could explain their chemical differences.
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The asteroid belt starts off empty, but is populated by planetesimals scattered outward from the inner ring (mostly near Mars), and inward by the giant planets’ growth.
This builds on Raymond & Izidoro (2017a,b) where we demonstrated these processes
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SciA..…
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Here is a blog post about the idea that the asteroid belt having started off completely empty and been re-populated
planetplanet.net/2017/09/13/the…
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The middle planetesimal ring in our model (associated with the water snow line) is the most massive, often with 50-100 Earth masses in planetesimals. It can form the giant planets’ cores and is also the source of C-type asteroids (and carbonaceous meteorites).
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What about the outer ring at ~30 au?
It represents the primordial Kuiper belt, and played a key role in the dynamical instability that shaped the Solar System’s present-day orbital distribution
(the green dots in this animation by David Nesvorny)
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With three rings of planetesimals, our model matches the orbital architecture of the Solar System. Plus, it can explain (with some assumptions) the distributions of asteroids and different types of meteorites.
(NC = "non-carbonaceous", CC = "carbonaceous chondrite")
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In context, our new model basically explains the initial conditions of the “low-mass asteroid belt” model, with a few added bonuses.
Details in this review: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018arXiv1…
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Can this same idea of planetesimal rings explain the distributions of exoplanets?
We think so. But you know, there’s a lot of ins and outs and what have yous…
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So please check out “Planetesimal rings as the cause of the Solar System’s planetary architecture” in @NatureAstronomy !
Authors: @izidoro_astro, @rdasgupta_earth, myself, Rogerio Deienno, Bertram Bitsch, and Andrea Isella
Over & (almost) out!
nature.com/articles/s4155…
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Ps- We wrote a Nautilus article about our “Frankenstein monster of a model”
nautil.us/blog/planets-a…
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This MPIA press release for our paper has a pretty sweet title!
scitechdaily.com/three-rings-to…
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