The Asteroid Belt as a Relic From a Chaotic Early Solar System
arXiv:1609.04970 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/833/1/40
Abstract
The orbital structure of the asteroid belt holds a record of the Solar System's dynamical history. The current belt only contains Earth masses yet the asteroids' orbits are dynamically excited, with a large spread in eccentricity and inclination. In the context of models of terrestrial planet formation, the belt may have been excited by Jupiter's orbital migration. The terrestrial planets can also be reproduced without invoking a migrating Jupiter; however, as it requires a severe mass deficit beyond Earth's orbit, this model systematically under-excites the asteroid belt. Here we show that the orbits of the asteroids may have been excited to their current state if Jupiter and Saturn's early orbits were chaotic. Stochastic variations in the gas giants' orbits cause resonances to continually jump across the main belt and excite the asteroids' orbits on a timescale of tens of millions of years. While hydrodynamical simulations show that the gas giants were likely in mean motion resonance at the end of the gaseous disk phase, small perturbations could have driven them into a chaotic but stable state. The gas giants' current orbits were achieved later, during an instability in the outer Solar System. Although it is well known that the present-day Solar System exhibits chaotic behavior, our results suggest that the early Solar System may also have been chaotic.
Accepted for publication in ApJ
References in corpus (16)
- Solar System evolution from compositional mapping of the asteroid belt
- A comparative study of disc-planet interaction
- Dynamics of the giant planets of the solar system in the gaseous proto-planetary disk and relationship to the current orbital architecture
- Three-dimensional simulations of multiple protoplanets embedded in a protostellar disc
- Highly Siderophile Elements in the Earth's Mantle as a Clock for the Moon-forming Impact
- Constraints on resonant-trapping for two planets embedded in a protoplanetary disc
- Lunar and Terrestrial Planet Formation in the Grand Tack Scenario
- Influence of an inner disc on the orbital evolution of massive planets migrating in resonance
- Chaotic Disintegration of the Inner Solar System
- Outward migration of Jupiter and Saturn in 3:2 or 2:1 resonance in radiative disks: implications for the Grand Tack and Nice models
- Formation and accretion history of terrestrial planets from runaway growth through to late time: implications for orbital eccentricity
- The Grand Tack model: a critical review
- On the evolution of the resonant planetary system HD128311
- Is the Grand Tack model compatible with the orbital distribution of main belt asteroids?
- Long-lived Chaotic Orbital Evolution of Exoplanets in Mean Motion Resonances with Mutual Inclinations
- Surfing on the Edge: Chaos vs. Near-Integrability in the System of Jovian Planets
Cited by in corpus (7)
- Origin of water in the inner Solar System: Planetesimals scattered inward during Jupiter and Saturn's rapid gas accretion
- Impact splash chondrule formation during planetesimal recycling
- Silicate Melting and Vaporization during Rocky Planet Formation
- Instabilities in the Early Solar System due to a Self-gravitating Disk
- Stable habitable zones of single Jovian planet systems
- Resilient habitability of nearby exoplanet systems
- Secular resonance sweeping and orbital excitation in decaying disks