J. R. Szalay, P. Pokorny, D. M. Malaspina, A. Pusack, S. D. Bale, K. Battams, L. C. Gasque, K. Goetz, H. Kruger, D. J. McComas, N. A. Schwadron, P. Strub
The zodiacal cloud is one of the largest structures in the solar system and strongly governed by meteoroid collisions near the Sun. Collisional erosion occurs throughout the zodiacal cloud, yet it is historically difficult to directly measure and has never been observed for discrete meteoroid streams. After six orbits with Parker Solar Probe (PSP), its dust impact rates are consistent with at least three distinct populations: bound zodiacal dust grains on elliptic orbits ($α$-meteoroids), unbound $β$-meteoroids on hyperbolic orbits, and a third population of impactors that may either be direct observations of discrete meteoroid streams, or their collisional byproducts ("$β$-streams"). $β$-streams of varying intensities are expected to be produced by all meteoroid streams, particularly in the inner solar system, and are a universal phenomenon in all exozodiacal disks. We find the majority of collisional erosion of the zodiacal cloud occurs in the range of $10-20$ solar radii and expect this region to also produce the majority of pick-up ions due to dust in the inner solar system. A zodiacal erosion rate of at least $\sim$100 kg s$^{-1}$ and flux of $β$-meteoroids at 1 au of $0.4-0.8 \times 10^{-4}$ m$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ is found to be consistent with the observed impact rates. The $β$-meteoroids investigated here are not found to be primarily responsible for the inner source of pick-up ions, suggesting nanograins susceptible to electromagnetic forces with radii below $\sim$50 nm are the inner source of pick-up ions. We expect the peak deposited energy flux to PSP due to dust to increase in subsequent orbits, up to 7 times that experienced during its sixth orbit.
The solar system is dusty, and would become dustier over time as asteroids collide and comets disintegrate, except that small debris particles in interplanetary space do not last long. They can be ejected from the solar system by Jupiter, thermally destroyed near the Sun, or physically disrupted by collisions. Also, some are swept by the Earth (and other planets), producing meteors. Here we develop a dynamical model for the solar system meteoroids and use it to explain meteor radar observations. We find that the Jupiter Family Comets (JFCs) are the main source of the prominent concentrations o…
Exo-zodiacal dust, exozodi for short, is warm (~300K) or hot (up to ~2000K) dust found in the inner regions of planetary systems around main sequence stars. In analogy to our own zodiacal dust, it may be located in or near the habitable zone or closer in, down to the dust sublimation distance. The study of the properties, distribution, and evolution of exozodis can inform about the architecture and dynamics of the innermost regions of planetary systems, close to their habitable zones. On the other hand, the presence of large amounts of exo-zodiacal dust may be an obstacle for future space miss…
The zodiacal cloud is a thick circumsolar disk of small debris particles produced by asteroid collisions and comets. Here, we present a zodiacal cloud model based on the orbital properties and lifetimes of comets and asteroids, and on the dynamical evolution of dust after ejection. The model is quantitatively constrained by IRAS observations of thermal emission, but also qualitatively consistent with other zodiacal cloud observations. We find that 85-95% of the observed mid-infrared emission is produced by particles from the Jupiter-family comets (JFCs) and $<$10% by dust from long period come…
We model the infrared emission from zodiacal dust detected by the IRAS and COBE missions, with the aim of estimating the relative contributions of asteroidal, cometary and interstellar dust to the zodiacal cloud. Our most important result is the detection of an isotropic component of foreground radiation due to interstellar dust. The dust in the inner solar system is known to have a fan-like distribution. If this is assumed to extend to the orbit of Mars, we find that cometary, asteroidal and interstellar dust account for 70%, 22% and 7.5% of the dust in the fan. We find a worse fit if the fan…
Models of the zodiacal cloud's thermal emission and sporadic meteoroids suggest Jupiter-family comets (JFCs) as the dominant source of interplanetary dust. However, comet sublimation is insufficient to sustain the quantity of dust presently in the inner solar system, suggesting that spontaneous disruptions of JFCs may supply the zodiacal cloud. We present a model for the dust produced in comet fragmentations and its evolution. Using results from dynamical simulations, the model follows individual comets drawn from a size distribution as they evolve and undergo recurrent splitting events. The r…
Scattered sunlight from the interplanetary dust (IPD) cloud in our Solar system presents a serious foreground challenge for spectro-photometric measurements of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL). In this work, we report on measurements of the absolute intensity of the Zodiacal Light (ZL) using the novel technique of Fraunhofer line spectroscopy on the deepest 8542 Angstrom line of the near-infrared CaII absorption triplet. The measurements are performed with the Narrow Band Spectrometer (NBS) aboard the Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER) sounding rocket instrument. We use the …
The near-Earth asteroid population suggests the existence of an inner Main Belt source of asteroids that belongs to the spectroscopic X-complex and has moderate albedos. The identification of such a source has been lacking so far. We argue that the most probable source is one or more collisional asteroid families that escaped discovery up to now. We apply a novel method to search for asteroid families in the inner Main Belt population of asteroids belonging to the X-complex with moderate albedo. Instead of searching for asteroid clusters in orbital elements space, which could be severely dispe…
The observations of the solar F-corona from space are reviewed emphasizing the 25 years of continuous monitoring achieved by the LASCO-C2 and C3 coronagraphs. Our work includes images obtained by the Clementine cameras, and the STEREO/SECCHI/HI-1A and PSP/WISPR heliospheric imagers. The characteristic radiance profiles along the equatorial and polar directions follow power laws in the 5°-50° range of elongation, with constant power exponents of -2.33 and -2.55. Both profiles connect extremely well to the corresponding standard profiles of the zodiacal light. The LASCO equatorial profile exhibi…
The ungrouped iron meteorite Nedagolla is the first meteorite with bulk Mo, Ru, and Ni isotopic compositions that are intermediate between those of the non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) meteorite reservoirs. The Hf-W chronology of Nedagolla indicates that this mixed NC-CC isotopic composition was established relatively late, more than 7 million years after Solar System formation. The mixed NC-CC isotopic composition is consistent with the chemical composition of Nedagolla, which combines signatures of metal segregation under more oxidizing conditions (relative depletions in Mo and W)…
We present numerical simulations of terrestrial planet formation that examine the growth continuously from planetesimals to planets in the inner Solar System. Previous studies show that the growth will be inside-out, but it is still common practice to assume that the entire inner disk will eventually reach a bi-modal distribution of embryos and planetesimals. For the combinations of disk mass, initial planetesimal radius and gas disk lifetime explored in this work the entire disk never reaches a simple bi-modal mass distribution. We find that the inside-out growth is amplified by the combined …
The solar system's dynamical state can be explained by an orbital instability among the giant planets. A recent model has proposed that the giant planet instability happened during terrestrial planet formation. This scenario has been shown to match the inner solar system by stunting Mars' growth and preventing planet formation in the asteroid belt. Here we present a large sample of new simulations of the "Early Instability" scenario. We use an N-body integration scheme that accounts for collisional fragmentation, and also perform a large set of control simulations that do not include an early …
In many ways, the HR 8799 planetary system strongly resembles our own. It features four giant planets and two debris belts, analogues to the Asteroid and Edgeworth-Kuiper belts. Here, we present the results of dynamical simulations of HR 8799's inner debris belt, to study its structure and collisional environment. Our results suggest that HR 8799's inner belt is highly structured, with gaps between regions of dynamical stability. The belt is likely constrained between sharp inner and outer edges, located at ~6 and ~8 au, respectively. Its inner edge coincides with a broad gap cleared by the 4:…
Gas-giant planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and massive exoplanets, were formed via the gas accretion onto the solid cores each with a mass of roughly ten Earth masses. However, rapid radial migration due to disk-planet interaction prevents the formation of such massive cores via planetesimal accretion. Comparably rapid core growth via pebble accretion requires very massive protoplanetary disks because most pebbles fall into the central star. Although planetesimal formation, planetary migration, and gas-giant core formation have been studied with much effort, the full evolution path from dust t…
Many debris discs reveal a two-component structure, with an outer Kuiper-belt analogue and a warm inner component whose origin is still a matter of debate. One possibility is that warm emission stems from an "asteroid belt" closer in to the star. We consider a scenario in which a set of giant planets is formed in an initially extended planetesimal disc. These planets carve a broad gap around their orbits, splitting up the disc into the outer and the inner belts. After the gas dispersal, both belts undergo collisional evolution in a steady-state regime. This scenario is explored with detailed c…
Aims. We developed a six-part collisional evolution model of the main asteroid belt (MB) and used it to study the contribution of the different regions of the MB to the near-earth asteroids (NEAs). Methods. We built a statistical code called ACDC that simulates the collisional evolution of the MB split into six regions (namely Inner, Middle, Pristine, Outer, Cybele and High-Inclination belts) according to the positions of the major resonances present there ($ν_{6}$, 3:1J, 5:2J, 7:3J and 2:1J). We consider the Yarkovsky effect and the mentioned resonances as the main mechanism that removes aste…
We investigated fundamental processes of collisional sticking and fragmentation of dust aggregates by carrying out N-body simulations of submicron-sized icy dust monomers. We examined the condition for collisional growth of two colliding dust aggregates in a wide range of the mass ratio, 1-64. We found that the mass transfer from a larger dust aggregate to a smaller one is a dominant process in collisions with a mass ratio of 2-30 and impact velocity of \approx 30-170 m s^-1. As a result, the critical velocity, v_fra, for fragmentation of the largest body is considerably reduced for such unequ…
If the Solar system had a history of planet migration, the signature of that migration may be imprinted on the populations of asteroids and comets that were scattered in the planets' wake. Here, we consider the dynamical and collisional evolution of inner Solar system asteroids which join the Oort cloud. We compare the Oort cloud asteroid populations produced by migration scenarios based on the `Nice' and `Grand Tack' scenarios, as well as a null hypothesis where the planets have not migrated, to the detection of one such object, C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS). Our simulations find that the discovery o…
We report on the discovery of new Martian Trojans within the Minor Planet Center list of asteroids. Their orbital evolution over 10^8 yr shows characteristic signatures of dynamical longevity (Scholl et al, 2005) while their average orbits resemble that of the largest known Martian Trojan, 5261 Eureka. The group forms a cluster within the region where the most stable Trojans should reside. Based on a combinatorial analysis and a comparison with the Jovian Trojan population, we argue that both this feature and the apparent paucity of km-sized Martian Trojans (Trilling et al, 2006) as compared t…
High levels of dust have been detected in the immediate vicinity of many stars, both young and old. A promising scenario to explain the presence of this short-lived dust is that these analogues to the Zodiacal cloud (or exozodis) are refilled in situ through cometary activity and sublimation. As the reservoir of comets is not expected to be replenished, the presence of these exozodis in old systems has yet to be adequately explained. It was recently suggested that mean-motion resonances (MMR) with exterior planets on moderately eccentric ($\mathrm{e_p}\gtrsim 0.1$) orbits could scatter planete…
Observations of the youngest planets ($\sim$1-10 Myr for a transitional disk) will increase the accuracy of our planet formation models. Unfortunately, observations of such planets are challenging and time-consuming to undertake even in ideal circumstances. Therefore, we propose the determination of a set of markers that can pre-select promising exoplanet-hosting candidate disks. To this end, N-body simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of an embedded Jupiter mass planet on the dynamics of the surrounding planetesimal disk and the resulting creation of second generation collisio…
Two fundamentally different processes of rocky planet formation exist, but it is unclear which one built the terrestrial planets of the solar system. Either they formed by collisions among planetary embryos from the inner solar system, or by accreting sunward-drifting millimeter-sized 'pebbles' from the outer solar system. We show that the isotopic compositions of Earth and Mars are governed by two-component mixing among inner solar system materials, including material from the innermost disk unsampled by meteorites, whereas the contribution of outer solar system material is limited to a few p…
There is an active debate about whether the properties of comets as observed today are primordial or, alternatively, if they are a result of collisional evolution or other processes. We investigate the effects of collisions on a comet with a structure like 67P/C-G. We develop scaling laws for the critical specific impact energies required for a significant shape alteration. These are then used in simulations of the combined dynamical and collisional evolution of comets in order to study the survival probability of a primordially formed object with a shape like 67P/C-G. The effects of impacts o…
A collisional avalanche is set off by the breakup of a large planetesimal, releasing small unbound grains that enter a debris disc located further away from the star, triggering there a collisional chain reaction that can potentially create detectable transient structures. We explore this mechanism, using for the first time a code coupling dynamical and collisional evolutions, and investigate if avalanches could explain the short-term luminosity variations observed in some extremely bright discs. We consider two set-ups: a cold disc case, with a dust release at 10au and an outer disc extending…
The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS). X. Interpreting the peculiar dust rings around HD 131835
Konkoly Observatory, HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences(孔科利天文台,匈牙利研究与创新学院天文学与地球科学研究中心);Millennium Nucleus on Young Exoplanets and their Moons (YEMS)(年轻系外行星及其卫星千年核心);Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics Space Exploration (CIRAS), Universidad de Santiago, Chile(智利圣地亚哥大学跨学科天体物理空间探索研究中心);Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, E-38200, Tenerife, Spain(拉帕尔马大学天体物理系);Institute of Physics and Astronomy, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, 1117 Budapest, Hungary(罗兰大学物理与天文学研究所);Max-Planck-Insitut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany(马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所);Institute of Physics Belgrade, University of Belgrade, Pregrevica 118, 11080 Belgrade, Serbia(贝尔格莱德大学物理研究所);Institut für Astrophysik, Universität Wien, Türkensch(维也纳大学天体物理研究所)
We present an analysis of the debris disc around the nearby K2 V star HIP 17439. In the context of the Herschel DUNES key programme the disc was observed and spatially resolved in the far-IR with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE instruments. In a first model, Ertel et al. (2014) assumed the size and radial distribution of the circumstellar dust to be independent power laws. There, by exploring a very broad range of possible model parameters several scenarios capable of explaining the observations were suggested. In this paper, we perform a follow-up in-depth collisional modelling of these scenarios…
Large-scale Morphology of the Optical F-corona from a Total Solar Eclipse Observation During the Artemis II Lunar Flyby
Tokyo City University(东京都市大学);Tohoku University(东北大学);National Astronomical Observatory of Japan(日本国立天文台);Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory(石垣岛天文台)
The statistics of extrasolar planetary systems indicate that the default mode of planet formation generates planets with orbital periods shorter than 100 days, and masses substantially exceeding that of the Earth. When viewed in this context, the Solar System is unusual. Here, we present simulations which show that a popular formation scenario for Jupiter and Saturn, in which Jupiter migrates inward from a > 5 AU to a ~ 1.5 AU before reversing direction, can explain the low overall mass of the Solar System's terrestrial planets, as well as the absence of planets with a < 0.4 AU. Jupiter's inwa…
The dust measured in debris disks traces the position of planetesimal belts. In our Solar System, we are also able to measure the largest planetesimals directly and can extrapolate down to make an estimate of the dust. The zodiacal dust from the asteroid belt is better constrained than the only rudimentary measurements of Kuiper belt dust. Dust models will thus be based on the current orbital distribution of the larger bodies which provide the collisional source. The orbital distribution of many Kuiper belt objects is strongly affected by dynamical interactions with Neptune, and the structure …
[Abridged] Debris disks are extrasolar analogs to the solar system planetesimal belts. The star Fomalhaut harbors a cold debris belt at 140 AU as well as evidence of a warm dust component, which is suspected of being a bright analog to the solar system's zodiacal dust. Interferometric observations obtained with the VLTI and the KIN have identified near- and mid-infrared excesses attributed to hot and warm exozodiacal dust in the inner few AU of the star. We performed parametric modeling of the exozodiacal disk using the GRaTeR radiative transfer code to reproduce the interferometric data, comp…
The spatially resolved AU Mic debris disc is among the most famous and best-studied debris discs. We aim at a comprehensive understanding of the dust production and the dynamics of the disc objects with in depth collisional modelling including stellar radiative and corpuscular forces. Our models are compared to a suite of observational data for thermal and scattered light emission, ranging from the ALMA radial surface brightness profile at 1.3mm to polarisation measurements in the visible. Most of the data can be reproduced with a planetesimal belt having an outer edge at around 40au and subse…
A determination of the dynamical evolution of the asteroid belt is difficult because the asteroid belt has evolved since the time of asteroid formation through mechanisms that include: (1) catastrophic collisions, (2) rotational disruption, (3) chaotic orbital evolution and (4) orbital evolution driven by Yarkovsky radiation forces. The timescales of these loss mechanisms are uncertain and there is a need for more observational constraints. In the inner main belt, the mean size of the non-family asteroids increases with increasing inclination. Here, we use that observation to show that all inn…
We have performed detailed dynamical modeling of the structure of a faint dust band observed in coadded IRAS data at an ecliptic latitude of 17$^{\circ}$ that convincingly demonstrates that it is the result of a relatively recent (significantly less than 1 Ma) disruption of an asteroid and is still in the process of forming. We show here that young dust bands retain information on the size distribution and cross-sectional area of dust released in the original asteroid disruption, before it is lost to orbital and collisional decay. We find that the Emilkowalski cluster is the source of this par…
The asteroid belt is an open window on the history of the Solar System, as it preserves records of both its formation process and its secular evolution. The progenitors of the present-day asteroids formed in the Solar Nebula almost contemporary to the giant planets. The actual process producing the first generation of asteroids is uncertain, strongly depending on the physical characteristics of the Solar Nebula, and the different scenarios produce very diverse initial size-frequency distributions. In this work we investigate the implications of the formation of Jupiter, plausibly the first gia…
Violent stochastic collisional events have been invoked as a possible explanation for some debris discs displaying pronounced asymmetries or having a great luminosity excess. So far, no thorough modelling of the consequences of such events has been carried out, mainly because of the extreme numerical challenge of coupling the dynamical and collisional evolution of dust. We perform the first fully self-consistent modelling of the aftermath of massive breakups in debris discs. We follow the collisional and dynamical evolution of dust released after the breakup of a Ceres-sized body at 6 AU from …
The inner part of protoplanetary disks can be threaded by strong magnetic fields. In laboratory levitation experiments, we study how magnetic fields up to 7 mT influence the aggregation of dust by observing the self-consistent collisional evolution of particle ensembles. As dust samples we use mixtures of iron and quartz in different ratios. Without magnetic fields, particles in all samples grow into a bouncing barrier. These aggregates reversibly form larger clusters in the presence of magnetic fields. The size of these clusters depends on the strength of the magnetic field and the ratio betw…
The migration history of Jupiter in the sun's natal disk remains poorly constrained. Here we consider how Jupiter's migration affects small-body reservoirs and how this constrains its original orbital distance from the Sun. We study the implications of large-scale and inward radial migration of Jupiter for the inner solar system while considering the effects of collisional evolution of planetesimals. We use analytical prescriptions to simulate the growth and migration of Jupiter in the gas disk. We assume the existence of a planetesimal disk inside Jupiter's initial orbit. This planetesimal di…
Events which meet certain criteria from star tracker images onboard the Juno spacecraft have been proposed to be due to interplanetary dust particle impacts on its solar arrays. These events have been suggested to be caused by particles with diameters larger than 10 micrometers. Here, we compare the reported event rates to expected dust impact rates using dynamical meteoroid models for the four most abundant meteoroid/dust populations in the inner solar system. We find that the dust impact rates predicted by dynamical meteoroid models are not compatible with either the Juno observations in ter…
Collisional growth of dust occurs in all regions of protoplanetary disks with certain materials dominating between various condensation lines. The sticking properties of the prevalent dust species depend on the specific temperatures. The inner disk is the realm of silicates spanning a wide range of temperatures from room temperature up to sublimation beyond $1500\,\mathrm{K}$. For the first time, we carried out laboratory collision experiments with hot levitated basalt dust aggregates of $1\, \rm mm$ in size. The aggregates are compact with a filling factor of $0.37 \pm 0.06$. The constituent …
Context: The K2V star eps Eri hosts one known inner planet, an outer Kuiper belt analog, and an inner disk of warm dust. Spitzer/IRS measurements indicate that the warm dust is present at distances as close as a few AU from the star. Its origin is puzzling, since an "asteroid belt" that could produce this dust would be unstable because of the known inner planet. Aims: Here we test the hypothesis that the observed warm dust is generated by collisions in the outer belt and is transported inward by Poynting-Robertson (P-R) drag and strong stellar winds. Methods: We simulated a steady-state distri…
Planets embedded within dust disks may drive the formation of large scale clumpy dust structures by trapping dust into resonant orbits. Detection and subsequent modeling of the dust structures would help constrain the mass and orbit of the planet and the disk architecture, give clues to the history of the planetary system, and provide a statistical estimate of disk asymmetry for future exoEarth-imaging missions. Here we present the first search for these resonant structures in the inner regions of planetary systems by analyzing the light curves of hot Jupiter planetary candidates identified by…
The solar system contains solids of all sizes, ranging from km-size bodies to nano-sized particles. Nanograins have been detected in situ in the Earth's atmosphere, near cometary and giant planet environments, and more recently in the solar wind at 1 AU. These latter nano grains are thought to be formed in the inner solar system dust cloud, mainly through collisional break-up of larger grains and are then picked-up and accelerated by the magnetized solar wind because of their large charge-to-mass ratio. In the present paper, we analyze the low frequency bursty noise identified in the Cassini r…
A circumsolar dust ring has been recently discovered close to the orbit of Mercury. There are currently no hypotheses for the origin of this ring in the literature, so we explore four different origin scenarios here: the dust originated from (1) the sporadic meteoroid complex that comprises the major portion of the Zodiacal Cloud, (2) recent asteroidal/cometary activity, (3) hypothetical dust-generating bodies locked in mean-motion resonances beyond Mercury, and (4) bodies co-orbiting with Mercury. We find that only scenario (4) reproduces the observed structure and location of Mercury's dust …