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Project Progress

In collaboration with Jonathan Lunine, Quinn and Raymond have performed integrations of planetary embryos as they form the terrestrial planets. This work is following the late stage of planetary formation where lunar size protoplanets grow via collisions to the current terrestrial size planets. Embryos are started in circular orbits throughout the terrestrial and asteroid belt region. Their orbits are then followed as they interact gravitationally and collisionally with each other and the growing gas giants. The preliminary results confirm earlier results showing that the impact of one or two embryos during the formation stage can make the difference between “wet” or “dry” planets. For example, in one calculation a “wet” Earth size object formed at 1 AU, and a “dry” Mars size object formed in the inner asteroid belt. Further work with higher resolution simulations is needed to see whether this result is an artifact of neglecting the effect of smaller bodies. The eventual goal of this project is to explore the effect on the volatile delivery of changing the masses and orbital parameters of the gas giants.