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The Asteroid Belt is characterized by the radial mixing of bodies with different physical properties, a very low mass compared to Minimum Mass Solar Nebula expectations and has an excited orbital distribution, with eccentricities and inclinations covering the entire range of values allowed by the constraints of dynamical stability. Models of the evolution of the Asteroid Belt show that the origin of its structure is strongly linked to the process of terrestrial planet formation. The Grand Tack model presents a possible solution to the conundrum of reconciling the small mass of Mars with the properties of the Asteroid Belt, including the mass depletion, radial mixing and orbital excitation. However, while the inclination distribution produced in the Grand Tack model is in good agreement with the one observed, the eccentricity distribution is skewed towards values larger than those found today. Here, we evaluate the evolution of the orbital properties of the Asteroid Belt from the end of the Grand Tack model (at the end of the gas nebula phase when planets emerge from the dispersing gas disk), throughout the subsequent evolution of the Solar System including an instability of the Giant Planets approximately 400 Myr later. Before the instability, the terrestrial planets were modeled on dynamically cold orbits with Jupiter and Saturn locked in a 3:2 mean motion resonance. The model continues for an additional 4.1 Gyr after the giant planet instability. Our results show that the eccentricity distribution obtained in the Grand Tack model evolves towards one very similar to that currently observed, and the semimajor axis distribution does the same. The inclination distribution remains nearly unchanged with a slight preference for depletion at low inclination; this leads to the conclusion that the inclination distribution at the end of the Grand Tack is a bit over-excited. Also, we constrain the primordial eccentricities of Jupiter and Saturn, which have a major influence on the dynamical evolution of the Asteroid Belt and its final orbital structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several objects whose perihelion lies between Jupiter and Neptune have large semi-major axes a > 100 au, two of them having semi-major axis above 1000 au. Since these objects’ perihelia share the same region as the classical Centaurs, a coherent nomenclature for them could be large semi-major axis Centaurs (Laces). It has been argued that the classical Centaurs, with semi-major axes below 50 au, originate from the Scattered Disk. However, the Laces most likely originate from the Oort Cloud. We determine the brightest object in the Laces, classical Centaurs (with semi-major axis >20 au) and Scattered Disk populations using a procedure that introduces observational bias to a set of objects in orbits obtained from numerical simulations of the evolution of the Oort cloud and Scattered Disk in the framework of the Nice model. The application of the procedure consistently determines that the brightest distant Lace (semi-major axis above 500 au) is fainter than the brightest classical Centaur by about one magnitude, no matter what parameters were used for the procedure. However, reality shows a reversed situation: there is an excess of Laces with lower visual magnitudes. It is not clear why this is the case. We test whether a planetary-mass solar companion could produce an excess of bright Laces in comparison with classical Centaurs. We find that with the companion there is an excess of luminous Laces compared to when there is no companion. However, the companion model also produces many classical Centaurs with lower visual magnitudes than the observed ones. Thus we conclude that the companion does not solve this visual magnitude inconsistency, although the results are in general more coherent under the model with the companion than without. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Numerical integrations of the equations of motion of the giant planets and scattering particles show that there is a possible orbital itinerary that a particle may follow from a scattering mode up to a stable position near the orbit of 2004 XR190. This orbital evolution requires that the particle gets trapped in a mean motion resonance with Neptune coupled with the Kozai resonance. Imposing migration on Neptune while a particle is experiencing both resonances can entail an escape from resonance at a low particle’s eccentricity. This eccentricity and the associated inclination are always similar to those of 2004 XR190. I conclude that 2004 XR190 was most likely a scattered object that went through those resonance processes and was eventually deposited at its current position. By the same argument, it is expected that there must exist several other objects with similar semimajor axis, eccentricity and inclination as those of 2004 XR190. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The dynamical structure of the Solar System can be explained by a period of orbital instability experienced by the giant planets. While a late instability was originally proposed to explain the Late Heavy Bombardment, recent work favors an early instability. Here we model the early dynamical evolution of the outer Solar System to self-consistently constrain the most likely timing of the instability. We first simulate the dynamical sculpting of the primordial outer planetesimal disk during the accretion of Uranus and Neptune from migrating planetary embryos during the gas disk phase, and determine the separation between Neptune and the inner edge of the planetesimal disk. We performed simulations with a range of (inward and outward) migration histories for Jupiter. We find that, unless Jupiter migrated inwards by 10 AU or more, the instability almost certainly happened within 100 Myr of the start of Solar System formation. There are two distinct possible instability triggers. The first is an instability that is triggered by the planets themselves, with no appreciable influence from the planetesimal disk. About half of the planetary systems that we consider have a self-triggered instability. Of those, the median instability time is ∼ 4Myr. Among self-stable systems – where the planets are locked in a resonant chain that remains stable in the absence of a planetesimal's disk– our self-consistently sculpted planetesimal disks nonetheless trigger a giant planet instability with a median instability time of 37–62 Myr for a reasonable range of migration histories of Jupiter. The simulations that give the latest instability times are those that invoked long-range inward migration of Jupiter from 15 AU or beyond; however these simulations over-excited the inclinations of Kuiper belt objects and are inconsistent with the present-day Solar System. We conclude on dynamical grounds that the giant planet instability is likely to have occurred early in Solar System history. • The dynamical structure of Solar System can be explained by giant planet instability. • The early evolution of giant planets is used to get the timing of the instability. • The giant planet instability is likely to have occurred early in Solar System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]