Back to Search
Start Over
From mean-motion resonances to scattered planets: Producing the Solar System, eccentric exoplanets and Late Heavy Bombardments
- Publication Year :
- 2007
-
Abstract
- We show that interaction with a gas disk may produce young planetary systems with closely-spaced orbits, stabilized by mean-motion resonances between neighbors. On longer timescales, after the gas is gone, interaction with a remnant planetesimal disk tends to pull these configurations apart, eventually inducing dynamical instability. We show that this can lead to a variety of outcomes; some cases resemble the Solar System, while others end up with high-eccentricity orbits reminiscent of the observed exoplanets. A similar mechanism has been previously suggested as the cause of the lunar Late Heavy Bombardment. Thus, it may be that a large-scale dynamical instability, with more or less cataclysmic results, is an evolutionary step common to many planetary systems, including our own.<br />Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, submitted to ApJ
- Subjects :
- Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.0706.1235
- Document Type :
- Working Paper
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1086/525244