Back to Search
Start Over
Origin of the Structure of the Kuiper Belt during a Dynamical Instability in the Orbits of Uranus and Neptune
- Publication Year :
- 2007
-
Abstract
- We explore the origin and orbital evolution of the Kuiper belt in the framework of a recent model of the dynamical evolution of the giant planets, sometimes known as the Nice model. This model is characterized by a short, but violent, instability phase, during which the planets were on large eccentricity orbits. One characteristic of this model is that the proto-planetary disk must have been truncated at roughly 30 to 35 AU so that Neptune would stop migrating at its currently observed location. As a result, the Kuiper belt would have initially been empty. In this paper we present a new dynamical mechanism which can deliver objects from the region interior to ~35 AU to the Kuiper belt without excessive inclination excitation. Assuming that the last encounter with Uranus delivered Neptune onto a low-inclination orbit with a semi-major axis of ~27 AU and an eccentricity of ~0.3, and that subsequently Neptune's eccentricity damped in ~1 My, our simulations reproduce the main observed properties of the Kuiper belt at an unprecedented level.
- Subjects :
- Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.0712.0553
- Document Type :
- Working Paper
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2007.11.035