Planetary systems

Dr Mark Wyatt, Institute of Astronomy

1.  Solar system Wed 21 Jan, 2.30-3.30 Hoyle SLT

2.  Planetary system dynamics Tue 27 Jan, 2-3 Hoyle CR
3.  Extrasolar planets Wed 28 Jan, 2.3-3.30 Hoyle CR
4.  Planet formation Tue 3 Feb, 2-3 Hoyle SLT
5.  Protoplanetary disks Wed 4 Feb, 2.30-3.30 Hoyle SLT
6.  Debris disk observations Tue 10 Feb, 2-3 Hoyle CR
7.  Debris disk theory Wed 11 Feb, 2.30-3.30 Hoyle SLT
8.  Debris disk application ? ?

Graduate lecture course, 20 Jan-11 Feb 2009

1.  Solar system
Why study the solar system?
•  Still many outstanding questions
•  Formation?
•  Evolution?
•  New members?
•  Development of life?

•  Testbed for physics of planetary systems

•  Application to extrasolar systems
•  Context: how unique are we?

•  Impact on extragalactic observations/cosmology

•  Thermal emission from zodiacal cloud (Maris et al. 2006;
Babich et al. 2007)
•  Fast moving objects
•  Pioneer anomaly testing GR
Components of the solar system
•  The Sun
•  Mass/luminosity
•  Solar Wind/Magnetic field

•  Planets and their moons and ring systems

•  Terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
•  Jovian planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
•  Dwarf planets: Pluto (Ceres, Eris)

•  Minor planets
•  Asteroids: Asteroid Belt, Trojans, Near Earth Asteroids
•  Comets: Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud

•  Dust
•  Zodiacal Cloud
The Sun - mass
•  Vital stats:
•  Mass = 1.989 x 1030 kg
•  Radius = 6.95 x 108 m
•  Mean density = 1410 kg/m3

•  Definition of the solar system is the material

gravitationally bound to the Sun

•  Everything orbits the Sun on elliptical orbits

with orbital periods of
tper = a1.5 years
where a=semimajor axis in AU

•  The Sun’s influence extends out to ~100,000

AU (~0.5 pc), outside which galactic tides strip
material from the solar system
The Sun -
structure

•  Core: like all stars on the main

sequence, the Sun produces
energy by burning H in its core

•  Convective zone: that energy

is carried to the surface through
a radiative (<0.85Rsun) and
convective (0.85-1Rsun) zone
•  Chromosphere (CaII
•  Photosphere: is the visible and Hα emission,
surface of the Sun which has a faculae, flares)
temperature of ~5785 K,
although sunspots have lower •  Corona
temperatures of ~4000 K (prominences, loops,
origin of solar wind)
The Sun – rotation
•  The Sun’s rotation period on the
surface varies from 25 days at the
equator to 36 days at the poles

•  Below the convective zone

rotation is ~27 days

•  Rotation axis is 7.250 from the

ecliptic (which is the plane of
Earth’s orbit)

•  This rotation is just a small

fraction of the angular momentum
of the solar system (most of which
is in the gas giant planets)
The Sun – luminosity/spectrum
•  The most simple expression for
the solar spectrum would be a black
body at a temperature Teff

•  This implies a luminosity of

Lsun = 4πRsun2 σ Teff4
where σ = 5.67 x 10-8 JK-4m-2s-1
Lsun = 3.826 x 1026 W

•  But the true spectrum contains

lots of lines and tells us about solar
composition (and temperature)

•  Models such as Kurucz model

atmospheres can be used to work
out the spectrum
The Sun – composition
•  The Sun is composed mainly of Hydrogen and Helium. By mass
(measured from spectra of photosphere, but thought representative
of all but core, e.g., from neutrino flux, Gonzalez 2006):
H 71.0%
He 27.1%
O 0.97%
C 0.40%
N 0.096%
Si 0.099%
Mg 0.076%
Ne 0.058%
Fe 0.14%
S 0.040%
Other 0.0015%

•  This compares well with the composition of the rest of the

material in the solar system (meteorites and terrestrial planets)
 The Sun – solar wind
•  First discovered because comet ion tails always
point away from the Sun; caused by
fast moving ions in the corona which escape the
Sun’s gravitational field

•  It has a slow component (300-500km/s) at the

equator (<150) and fast component (700-800km/s)
at higher latitudes; at 1AU mean density is 7x106
protons/m3 (v ~ const, so ρ ∝ r-2); neutral, roughly
solar composition

•  Interaction of charged particles with planet

magnetospheres and atmospheres -> aurorae
borealis

•  Solar wind interacts with the interstellar medium

at the heliopause
The Sun – magnetic field
•  Spectroscopy of Zeeman splitting of lines shows sunspots are regions of
strong magnetic fields

•  Solar magnetic field is carried into space by solar wind to form

interplanetary magnetic field (IMF)

•  Solar wind flow is radially away from the

Sun, but because of solar rotation the open
field line is anchored to the Sun so that the
IMF has a spiral pattern (Parker 1958); at
the Earth the IMF is at 450 to the radial
direction, and is weak B ~ 5x10-5 G

•  The field is a split magnetic monopole with

inward and outward pointing field lines in
different hemispheres and a neutral current
sheet (sector boundaries)
 The Sun – evolution
The Sun has an age of 4.5 Gyr, while its main
sequence lifetime is ~10Gyr

Long term evolution:

•  Pre-main sequence evolution (PMS evolutionary
tracks to zero age main sequence)
•  Main sequence evolution (slight luminosity increase)
•  Post-main sequence evolution (Red Giant branch)

Short timescale variations due to, e.g., sunspot cycles:

11 years + Maunder minimum (1640-1710) when no
sunspots and cold temperature on Earth; more
prominences and flares at solar maximum
The planets – overview/mass
Mass Distance
Mercury 0.06 Mearth 0.39 AU
Venus 0.82 Mearth 0.72 AU
Terrestrial
Earth 1.0 Mearth 1.0 AU planets

Mars 0.11 Mearth 1.5 AU

Jupiter 318 Mearth 5.2 AU
Saturn 98 Mearth 9.5 AU Jovian
Uranus 15 Mearth 19.2 AU planets

Neptune 17 Mearth 30.1 AU

Pluto 0.002 Mearth 39.5 AU Dwarf planet
1 Mearth = 6 x 1024 kg = 3x10-6 Msun , 1 AU = 1.5 x 1011 m
The planets - orbits Aphelion
ae
Perihelion

Three things I will say about orbits:

•  Semimajor axis, a (tper=a1.5) 2a
•  Eccentricity, e
•  Inclination, I
•  Evenly spaced -> Titius-Bode’s law
a=0.4+0.3(2i), predicted Ceres (1801)
a, AU e I, deg and Uranus (1781)
Mercury 0.39 0.206 7.0
Venus 0.72 0.007 3.4 •  La Grande Inequalite (JS near 5:2
Earth 1.0 0.017 0.0 resonance) and NP in 3:2 resonance
Mars 1.5 0.093 1.9
•  All orbit in the same direction, in the
Jupiter 5.2 0.048 1.3 same plane on roughly circular orbits
Saturn 9.5 0.054 2.5
Uranus 19.2 0.047 0.8 •  Except Pluto, and possibly Mercury;
Neptune 30.1 0.009 1.8 high e of JS also important for
formation/evolution
Pluto 39.5 0.249 17.1
The planets - rotation
Tper, yrs Prot, hrs Obliquity •  Mercury is in a 3:2 spin-orbit
Mercury 0.241 1407.5 0.10
resonance, probably despun by
solar tides
Venus 0.615 5832.5 177.40
Earth 1.00 23.9345 23.450 •  Venus, Uranus and Pluto have
Mars 1.88 24.623 25.190 retrograde rotation, possibly as
Jupiter 11.86 9.925 3.120 result of collision with proto-planet
Saturn 29.46 10.656 26.730
during formation (Canup 2005;
Parisi et al. 2008)
Uranus 84.00 17.24 97.860
Neptune 164.80 16.11 29.560 •  NB obliquity is measured relative
Pluto 247.7 153.29 119.60 to orbital plane rather than ecliptic
The planets – shapes
•  To zero-th order planets are spherical
Oblateness,
(Deq-Dp)/Deq
•  To first order they are oblate spheroids, where
oblateness is defined as f=(Dequator-Dpole)/Dequator Mercury 0.000
Venus 0.000
•  The origin of the oblateness is in rotation as well Earth 0.0034
tides from their satellites (and the Sun) Mars 0.0065
Jupiter 0.0649
•  The response of a planet to tides tells you about its
internal structure Saturn 0.098
Uranus 0.023
ω Neptune 0.017
Pluto 0.0
Dequator

Dpole
The planets – internal structure
Density,
Terrestrial planets: kg/m3
•  iron core, rocky mantle, crust (differentiated in formation)
Mercury 5427
•  Mercury’s high density -> large iron core (to 0.75Rpl),
perhaps caused by massive impact (Asphaug et al. 2006) Venus 5204
Earth 5515
Jovian planets: Mars 3933
•  rocky/icy (liquid) core and metallic/molecular hydrogen (JS) Jupiter 1326
or mantle of ices and H/He/CH4 gas (UN)
Saturn 687
•  mass of Jupiter’s core is model dependent 0-11Mearth, but
Saturn’s core does exist 9-22Mearth (Sauron & Guillot 2004) Uranus 1318
Neptune 1638
Pluto: rocky core, ice mantle, layer of frozen methane, Pluto 2060
nitrogen and carbon monoxide
 The planets - Albedo T, K Composition
Mercury 5.6% 100-700 He, H
atmospheres Venus 72% 737 CO2, N2, SO2

•  Mercury and Mars have very tenuous Earth 38.5% 290 N2, O2, Ar, H2O
atmospheres due to their low gravity Mars 16% 184-242 CO2, N2, Ar, O2
(thermal velocity>escape velocity), leading Jupiter 70% 165 H2, He, CH4
to large night/day temperature variations
Saturn 75% 134 H2, He, CH4
•  Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere comes from Uranus 90% 76 H2, He, CH4
surface ices which evaporate when Pluto Neptune 82% 72 H2, He, CH4
approaches Sun (rpluto<rneptune 1979-1999)
Pluto 14.5% 50 CH4, N2
•  Clouds increase albedo (i.e.,
reflection of sunlight) and are •  CH4 above clouds on Uranus causes
made of NH3 ice on Saturn blue colour (and on Neptune)
and crystal CH4 on Uranus
•  Storms on Jupiter (great red spot)
•  Permanent covering of and Neptune (great dark spot), and
sulphuric acid clouds on 500m/s winds at Saturn’s equator
Venus; but dense atmosphere
(Pvenus=90Pearth) leads to •  Dense parallel bands of clouds on
greenhouse effect Jupiter and Saturn
The planets – surface features
Jovian planets have liquid surfaces, but for terrestrial
planets + Pluto:
•  Polar ice caps: all (except Venus)
•  Craters: Mercury heavily, no small (<2km) craters
on Venus, few on Earth due to plate tectonics, on both
Mars and Pluto
•  Water: none Venus and Mercury, oceans on Earth,
water channels on Mars
•  Topological: mountains on Earth (8km), Mars
(Olympus Mons 27km), valleys (Mars Valles Marineris)
•  Volcanoes: Earth (active), Venus, Mars
•  Plate tectonics: on Earth wipes out craters; Venus
strong crust; Mars thick crust
•  Wind: wind erosion on Venus, dust storms on Mars
•  Other: large dark spots on Pluto near equator,
Venus surface young 300-500 Myr
 The planets - satellites Satellite
count
•  Terrestrial planets (and Pluto) have <3 moons Mercury 0
Venus 0
•  Jovian planets have >13 moons which fall into two Earth 1
categories: regular and irregular (Jewitt & Haghighipour Mars 2
2007)
Jupiter 63
Saturn 47
Uranus 27
Neptune 13
Pluto 3

Also interesting because:

Origin of satellites: •  Some are planets in
•  circumplanetary disk during planet formation their own right
(Estrada & Mosqueira 2006) •  Testbed of planetary
•  circumplanetary disk following massive collision system dynamics
•  captured minor planets •  Used to tell us about
•  fragments of planet from collision interior of planets
Planetary satellites – Earth’s Moon
Vital stats:
Mass = 0.012 Mearth, density = 3.3 g/cm3
Interior: mostly rocky
Surface: magma oceans; dusty regolith 2-20m deep; craters
Atmosphere: none
Orbit: a=384,400 km, e=0.05, I=5.2o
Spin: rotation period = orbtial period = 27.3 days (Wisdom 2006)
Synchronous rotation -> Moon keeps same face to us

Origin:collision with Mars-sized impactor when Earth was 70% of

its current size (Canup & Asphaug 2001) forming a circumplanetary
disk out of which the Moon accreted in ~1month. Work still
ongoing on models (e.g., Wada et al. 06).

Evidence for a period of Late Heavy Bombardment

•  spike in lunar rock resetting ages
•  spike in ages of lunar impact melts
•  impact basins Nectaris (3.9-3.92Gyr) and Orientale (3.82Gyr)
imply quick decline (half life 50Myr)
•  cratering on Mercury, Mars and Galilean satellites support LHB,
but equivocally
Planetary satellites - Mars
Mars has two satellites, both
discovered in 1877:
•  Phobos: D=10 km, a=9,380 km,
synchronous rotation, i=0.010
•  Deimos: D=6 km, a=23,500 km,
synchronous rotation, i=0.920

Phobos will spiral into Mars in a few

Myr, but Deimos will not Transits of Phobos
and Deimos
Origin is thought to be capture of across the Sun as
asteroids, but the origin of the observed from
equatorial orbits is a mystery. Mars (Bell et al.
2005) will
Singer (2003) suggests a capture of a constrain orbital
more massive asteroid which evolution due to
disintegrated, the largest fragments of tides and so
which already fell onto Mars. internal structure
of Mars
Planetary satellites - Pluto
Charon, discovered in 1978
•  Diameter = 1207 km (half that of Pluto)
•  Distance = 19,600 km
•  Surface = covered in dirty water ice
•  Mutually synchronous rotation with Pluto
means they keep same face to each other
•  No atmosphere (Sicardy et al. 2006)
•  Believed to have formed in collision (Canup
2005), though two scenarios still possible

New satellites discovered (Weaver et al.

2006): P1 and P2 which are 60-165km
diameter 6:4:1 orbital period ratio (Buie
et al. 2006; Lee & Peale 2006) believed
formed in collision with KBO (Stern
2006)
Planetary satellites – Galilean Moons
Distance Mass
Io 422,000 km 0.015 Mearth
Europa 671,000 km 0.008 Mearth
Ganymede 1,070,000 km 0.025 Mearth
Callisto 1,883,000 km 0.018 Mearth

Io: strong vulcanism caused by 100 m tides from Jupiter (synchronous rotation) and
orbital resonance with Europa; sulphur gives it a red/yellow colour

Europa: cracked icy surface; liquid water under surface; heated by tides; no craters

Ganymede: cratered; rock and ice; maybe water; largest moon in Solar System,
and larger than Mercury and Pluto

Callisto: most heavily cratered; rock and ice

Planetary satellites – Saturn/Uranus/
Neptune regular moons
Titan: discovered 1655 by Huygens Uranus: including
Mass = 0.022 Mearth (i.e., > MMercury) Miranda with 20 km
Distance = 1,221,850 km deep fault canyons,
Temperature = -178 C terraced layers
Atmosphere = dense, hazy; N2, CH4,
some organics; clouds
Neptune: biggest is Triton with
Surface features = 75% liquid ethane or
retrograde orbit which will
methane oceans? (West et al. 2005); continents
spiral onto Neptune in a few
Rotation = synchronous with Saturn (16 days)
Myr (captured moon, Agnor &
Catpured core? (Prentice 2006)
Hamilton 2006); ice volcanoes
spewing nitrogen and methane
Enceladus: particularly shiny (water ice/snow)
which snows back onto surface
Mimas: huge crater 1/3xdiameter (392 km)

Iapetus: dark material, equatorial ridge

Planetary satellites – Irregular satellites
Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune

Of Jupiter’s 63 satellites the majority are irregulars and rather than large satellites on
circular coplanar close-in orbits, these are smaller (D=2-200km) satellites on eccentric (e to
0.4) inclined (I to 500) more often retrograde orbits at large distance (>7x109m for Jupiter)

Wide field deep imagers -> large numbers -> find dynamical families and that number of
irregulars measured to given diameter constant for all planets (Jewitt & Sheppard 2005)

Origin in capture from passing asteroids/comets, perhaps during formation, although also
in collisions (e.g., Nereid and S/2002 N1 around Neptune, Grav et al. 2004; Nesvorny et al.
2004 -> collisions with protoplanetary disk) and dynamics -> captured objects released in
100 orbits, Holman et al. (2004)

Follow-up involves, e.g., spectroscopy to determine origin (e.g., Vilas et al. 2006) showing
that Jupiter irregulars from AB, others mostly from KB
The planets – ring systems
None of the terrestrial planets (or Pluto) have ring
systems but all of the Jovian planets do

Although recently Pluto suggested to form dust

rings sporadically when KBOs collide with its
moons (Stern 2006)

And there’s a large amount of space debris in orbit

around the Earth…

They are interesting because:

•  circumplanetary disk processes similar to
circumstellar disk processes
•  test of planetary system dynamics
•  finding satellites
•  origin and evolution
Planetary rings – Jovian rings overview
Jupiter: rings discovered in
Uranus: 11 rings
1979 by Voyager 1; comprised
discovered in 1977; very
of dust <10 µm in diameter;
narrow, eccentric and
Main=122,800 km (30 km
inclined; shepherded by
thick); Halo=Extends from
satellites; dark, carbon
main ring to Jupiter;
particles up to m in size;
Gossamer= >129,000 km;
self-gravitational effects
debris from smaller satellites;
affected by magnetic forces

Saturn: rings discovered in 1610 Neptune: several

by Galileo; but Huygens in 1651 narrow rings;
interpreted as rings; Cassini in including Adams ring
1675 discovered the first gap in made up of
the rings; Voyager found incomplete arcs and
composed of ice few µm to 10s of clumps from satellite
m; evidence for shepherding interactions
moons; A-G rings; braided rings
Planetary rings – recent results
Discovery of two new rings around Uranus
(Showalter et al. 2006): R1 replenished by
impacts onto moon Mab; past disruption of
moon origin for R2; chaos -> moons
unstable and will collide in few Myr ->
youthful dynamic system

Density wave
structure in Saturn’s
rings as expected
theoretically from
perturbations from
Discovery of single one-armed spiral Janus, Epimetheus,
structure in Saturn’s F ring (Charnoz et al. and Pandora (Murray
2005): not shepherded by Pandora and et al. 2004)
Prometheus as thought, but disrupted
(Prometheus steals material) and S/2004 S6
moonlet discovered by Cassini also involved
Minor planets in the inner solar sytem
•  The Asteroid Belt is the
belt of rocky asteroids
orbiting 2-3.5 AU from the
Sun (green) Jupiter

•  Some of asteroids in the

Earth region (Near Earth
Asteroids in red)

•  Another family of asteroids

are the Jupiter Trojans at ±
60o from Jupiter

•  There are 20,000

numbered asteroids The Inner Solar System
Asteroids – orbit distribution
More recently evidence
Kirkwood in 1886 of families created
noticed there are gaps when medium-sized
in the distribution of asteroids collided just a
asteroids; these are few Myr ago (Nesvorny
caused by gravitational et al. 2002; 2003) and
perturbations from even 0.1Myr (Nesvorny
Jupiter et al. 2006)

Also clustering in the

orbits of the asteroids
(Hirayma 1918): families
of asteroids created in
the break-up Gyr-ago of
much larger asteroids
(Eos, Themis, Koronis,
Massalia, Flora…)
Asteroids – size distribution
•  The size distribution is converted from a
magnitude distribution by making
assumptions about asteroid albedo

•  The distribution is very similar to that

expected in an infinite collisional cascade
(Tanaka et al. 1996):
n(D) ∝ D2-3q where q=11/6

•  But there is a wave in the size

distribution

•  This could be caused by the transition

from strength to gravity scaling (Durda et
al. 1998), but may be the fossilized size
distribution of AB early evolution (Bottke et
al. 2005)
 Asteroids – physical properties
•  Largest asteroid is Ceres at 940 km diameter

•  Vesta is the only known differentiated asteroid

with a basaltic crust, ultramafic mantle and
metal core (Keil 2002); its intact crust implies no
catastrophic collisions setting constraints on AB
evolution; origin of melting unknown (26Al?)

•  Asteroids are NOT spherical: Galileo spacecraft Asteroid composition:

flew past Gaspra and Ida in 1991 and 1993; C-type (carbonaceous)
NEAR landed on the asteroid EROS in 2001; 75%, solar composition
surface regolith (dusty layer); Hayabusa recent albedo=0.03-0.09
orbit around 500m asteroid Itokawa S-type (silicaceous)
17%, Fe/Mg silicates
albedo=0.1-0.22
M-type (metallic)
8%, metallic
albedo=0.1-0.18
 Asteroids – spin and rubble piles
•  Asteroids D>150m have a maximum spin rate
of 11/day

•  This is interpreted as evidence for their rubble

pile structure, because for a strengthless
material faster spins produce centrifugal tensile
forces at the equator that are greater than the
compressive gravity forces

•  Such structure is also expected from collisional

evolution models, since the energy required to
break-up a planetesimal is much lower than that
required to disperse the fragments

•  Smaller asteroids are fast rotators, implying

monolithic rocks (although very little strength
actually required)
Asteroids - binarity
~15% of asteroids are binary

Most have size ratios of 10-25 and orbital separations at

~10Rp, but more now seen at 3-4 size ratio and to 23-100Rp

Binaries form naturally in collisions either orbiting the

primary, or in escaping ejecta (Michel et al. 2001; Durda et
al. 2004), but also form in tidal encounters with planets
(Walsh & Richardson 2005)

•  First triple asteroid system

discovered around 87 Sylvia
(Marchis et al. 2005): primary is
280km rubble pile, while moonlets
orbit on prograde circular
equatorial orbits at 710 and
1360km
 Asteroids - Trojans
•  Orbiting Jupiter’s L4 and L5 points, with more
around L4 (though not sure if this is observational
bias)

•  Size distribution n(D) D2.39 for D>5km

and n(D) D1.28 for D<5km
(Yoshida & Nakamura 2005)

•  There is just one known Trojan binary (617

Patroclus)

•  Origin is thought to be formation near Jupiter

then capture while Jupiter was growing, possibly
with help of gas drag/collisions, though some seem
to be passing

•  Other planets also have Trojans (e.g., 4 at Mars)

 Asteroids – Near Earth Asteroids

Near Earth Asteroids are those that come within

1.3AU of Earth: Amors (cross Mars), Apollos (cross
Earth a>1), Atens (cross Earth a<1)

Origin is in the Asteroid belt: migration to chaotic

region where eccentricities pumped up (consistent
with cosmic ray exposure ages, size distribution,
orbital distribution, impact rate on terrestrial
planets, Bottke et al. 2002)
Dust: Zodiacal cloud
Dust created in collisions between asteroids in the
Asteroid Belt spirals in toward the Sun meaning the
Earth is enveloped in a dust cloud

This dust cloud is observable to the

naked eye just before (after) sunrise
(sunset) as the zodiacal light (sunlight
scattered by dust)

It is also the brightest thing

in the infrared sky outside
the Earth’s atmosphere
(e.g., Kelsall et al. 1998):
the dust is heated by the
Sun and reemits radiation in
the IR
Zodiacal Cloud: structures
IRAS and COBE showed that the zodiacal cloud is
not smooth and featureless: Smooth
background
Dust bands come from break-up of asteroid
families = dust with common proper inclinations
(Vokrouhlicky et al 2008) Dust bands

Earth’s
Earth’s resonant ring: caused by dust trapped in resonant
resonance with the Earth (Dermott et al. 1994); ring
none detected at Mars or at Jupiter’s Trojans
(Kuchner et al. 2000) Smooth background gives
inclination distribution and so
relative contribution of asteroids
and comets (still debated, Losue
et al. 2007); also offset in centre
of symmetry from Sun and the
ZC is warped
Zodiacal Cloud: accretion by Earth
LDEF (long duration exposure facility) showed the
size distribution of material accreted by the Earth
peaks at a few 100µm, fairly representative of
dust in ZC in general (Love & Brownlee 1993)

Dust accreted by Earth is also evident in deep-sea

sediments in the 3He record which is
extraterrestrial in origin – recent discovery of
peaks in the late Miocene and late Eocene (Farley
et al. 2006)

Largest “dust” accreted is seen as meteors which

are heated in Earth’s atmosphere (mm-sized
grains), but these come from comets which is
why there are showers when Earth goes through
comet tail
Zodiacal Cloud: evolution
Dust bands now linked dynamically
to the small families created recently
(last few Myr) – Nesvorny et al.
2002

The same events also linked to the

accretion of dust onto the Earth
(Farley et al. 2006)

The evolution of the zodiacal cloud is

thought to be stochastic, punctuated
by large increases in dust content
when large asteroids collide
 Kuiper Belt
•  Belt of icy comets orbiting the Sun
beyond 30 AU

•  Hypothesised in 1951 by Kuiper to

explain origin of comets; also explains
missing mass of the solar system

•  Leonard (1930) and Edgeworth (1943,

1949) may also claim to have predicted
this belt

•  First KBO, 1992 QB1, discovered by

Jewitt & Luu (1993)

•  KBOs are discovered by looking for

objects moving at the right speed
across the sky; e.g., Quaoar (right)
 Kuiper Belt
The Outer Solar System
•  Now almost 1000 KBOs
have been discovered

•  Argument over whether

Pluto is a planet or a
large KBO sparked by
discovery of 2003 UB313
(now Eris) which at
~2860km is larger than
Pluto (Brown, Trujillo &
Rabinowitz 2005) Neptune
Kuiper Belt – dynamical populations
The orbital distribution of KBOs
shows three distinct populations:

•  Resonant KBOs: trapped in

Neptune’s 3:2, 2:1, 5:3, 5:2, 9:5,
7:3 resonances (e.g., Pluto); also
one Neptune Trojan 2001QR322

•  Classical KBOs: 37-47 AU, low e

and I, but split into hot (I>50)
and cold (I<50) populations with •  Scattered KBOs: with high eccentricity
different physical characteristics; and perihelia close to Neptune
possible family (Chiang 2002;
Raggozine & Brown 2007) and •  Also Sedna-like objects with perihelia
gaps due to secular resonances; beyond Neptune (qsedna=76AU,
outer edge is not observational q2000CR105=44AU); origin in cluster
bias (Trujillo & Brown 2001) (Brasser et al. 2006) or planet X?
 Kuiper Belt – size distribution
•  Size distribution turns over at ~100km
for all populations, and different
populations have different size
distributions (Bernstein et al. 2004); the
break at 40km is predicted by collisional
evolution models (Pan & Sari 2005)

•  Hsiang-Kuang et al. (2006) claimed

occultations of 100m KBOs in Xray obs
of Sco X1, but found to be instrumental

•  Total mass is 0.05-0.3Mearth (Luu &

Jewitt 2002; Chiang et al. 2006)

Missing mass problem: 100 times that is required to form Pluto within 100Myr
(Kenyon & Luu 1998; 1999); also expected from extrapolation of surface density
distribution of solids in the solar system (Weidenschilling et al. 1977)
Kuiper Belt - binarity
15 KBO binaries now known: ~11% of all KBOs have
companions (Stephens & Noll 2006; Brown et al. 2006)
with population differences - cold classical belt (22%),
hot classical belt (5.5%), scattered disk (11.5%)

Different to asteroid binaries: high mass ratio (0.1-1 cf

10-3-10-4) and large orbits (20-2000Rp cf 3-10Rp)

Formation: collisions (Canup 2005;

Stern 2006), capture (Goldreich et al.
2002), 3-body exchange reactions
(Funato et al. 2006)

Most models require the KB to be much

more massive (for high collision
frequency) -> binarity is primordial, but
Petit & Mousis (2004) show binarity
must have been 10x greater
Kuiper Belt - evolution

Semimajor axis, AU
There is still much debate as to origin of
structure in the KB, though outward
migration of Neptune is origin of resonant
populations (Malhotra 1993) Time, years

Such migration probably came from

scattering of primordial planetesimals the
initial configuration of outer planets is
debated:
•  Hahn & Malhotra (1999) place them
slightly interior to current locations
•  Morbidelli, Tsiganis, Levison, Gomes (2005)
put orbits much closer and propose slow
migration until JS crossed 2:1 resonance
•  Thommes et al. (2002) place UN between
JS
Centaurs

Centaurs are the population of planetesimals orbiting between

Jupiter and Neptune

Long term dynamical simulations show this region to be

chaotic with orbits lasting just 10-100Myr (Levison & Duncan
1997)

Centaurs are thought to originate in the Kuiper belt

Their ultimate fate for most is ejection, but some end up as

Jupiter family comets, and a few % end up colliding with a
giant planet (Tiscareno & Malhotra 2003)
Comets
•  Comets have a nucleus a few km
across = icy chunks, frozen gases, dust

•  As they approach the Sun they are

heated and gas and dust is released
(Reach et al. 2007)

•  This forms a coma ~100,000 km

across

•  The solar wind pushes this into a

bright tail pointing away from the Sun
(we see gas in fluorescence, light
scattered by dust)

•  Stardust flew past comet Wild 2 in Jan

2004 taking pictures of its nucleus,
Deep Impact collision with 9P/Tempel 1
in 2005
 Comet McNaught
Comets
•  Comets have highly eccentric orbits

•  We see them when close to perihelion, but

they spend most of their orbits far from Sun

•  There are two types of comet:

•  Short period comets Comet 17P/Holmes

Have an orbital period < 200 years (e.g., Montalto et al. 2008)
Thought to come from the Kuiper Belt
e.g., Halley

•  Long period comets

Have an orbital period of several Myr
Thought to come from Oort cloud
Oort Cloud

The Oort cloud extends to

100,000 AU and beyond
5000 AU is roughly spherical
in shape (Oort 1950)

Total mass is 1-50Mearth

locked into 0.1-5x1012
comets
Natural outcome of planetary system formation

Material is more pristine than that of JFCs since little processing has occurred
since formation

Comets fed into inner SS by galactic tides (not encounters) (Dybczynski 2006)