Status Report

Making other Earths: Dynamical Simulations of Terrestrial Planet Formation and Water Delivery

By SpaceRef Editor
August 21, 2003
Filed under , ,

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0308159


From: Sean Raymond <raymond@astro.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:33:40 GMT (126kb)

Making other Earths: Dynamical Simulations of Terrestrial Planet
Formation and Water Delivery


Authors:
Sean N. Raymond (1),
Thomas R. Quinn (1),
Jonathan I. Lunine (2) ((1) Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, (2) Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizon, Tucson, AZ)

Comments: submitted to Icarus 29 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables


We present results from 42 simulations of late stage planetary accretion,
focusing on the delivery of volatiles (primarily water) to the terrestrial
planets. Our simulations include both planetary “embryos” (defined as Moon to
Mars sized protoplanets) and planetesimals, assuming that the embryos formed
via oligarchic growth. We investigate volatile delivery as a function of
Jupiter’s mass, position and eccentricity, the position of the snow line, and
the density (in solids) of the solar nebula.

In all simulations, we form 1-4 terrestrial planets inside 2 AU, which vary
in mass and volatile content. In 42 simulations we have formed 43 planets
between 0.8 and 1.5 AU, including 11 “habitable” planets between 0.9 and 1.1
AU. These planets range from dry worlds to “water worlds” with 100+ oceans of
water (1 ocean = 1.5×10^24 g), and vary in mass between 0.23 and 3.85 Earth
masses.

There is a good deal of stochastic noise in these simulations, but the most
important parameter is the planetesimal mass we choose, which reflects the
surface density in solids past the snow line. A high density in this region
results in the formation of a smaller number of terrestrial planets with larger
masses and higher water content, as compared with planets which form in systems
with lower densities.

We find that an eccentric Jupiter produces drier terrestrial planets with
higher eccentricities than a circular one. In cases with Jupiter at 7 AU, we
form what we call “super embryos,” 1-2 Earth mass protoplanets which can serve
as the accretion seeds for 2+ Earth mass planets with large water contents.

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