How did Jupiter’s formation shape the solar system, and specifically Earth’s orbit? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the formation processes of the first planets in our solar system. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of planets within our solar system, which could be used to gain greater understanding of those same processes in exoplanetary systems.
For the study, the researchers used computer models to simulate the early formation of Jupiter and how it shaped the solar system’s protoplanetary disk, which is largely comprised of gas and dust responsible for forming other planets. The team found that Jupiter’s rapid growth reduced the amount of gas and dust in the inner solar system while using this gas and dust to form its rings. This resulted in a second-generation of planets forming that matches the age of noncarbonaceous chondrites, which are some of the oldest rocks in the solar system with some as old as 4.54 billion years old. Essentially, the planets that exist today were not the first planets that formed in the solar system.
“Our model ties together two things that didn’t seem to fit before — the isotopic fingerprints in meteorites, which come in two flavors, and the dynamics of planet formation,” said Baibhav Srivastava, who is a PhD student at Rice University and lead author of the study. “Jupiter grew early, opened a gap in the gas disk, and that process protected the separation between inner and outer solar system material, preserving their distinct isotopic signatures. It also created new regions where planetesimals could form much later.”
Diagram Illustrating Jupiter's formation and evolution. (Credit: Rice University)
The researchers note how exoplanets with short orbital periods could indicate that gas and dust moving inward to the inner part of a protoplanetary disk might be a common occurrence throughout the cosmos.
What new discoveries about solar system planetary formation and evolution will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Science Advances, EurekAlert!