Did planet formation begin inside persistent gaseous vortices?
Abstract
We explore here the idea, reminiscent in some respect of Von Weizsaecker's (1944) and Alfven's (1976) outmoded cosmogonies, that long-lived vortices in a turbulent protoplanetary nebula can capture large amount of solid particles and initiate the formation of planets. Some puzzling features of the solar system appear as natural consequences of our simple model: - The captured mass presents a maximum near Jupiter's orbit. - Outside this optimal orbit, the collected material, mainly composed of low density particles, sinks deeply into the vortices and rapidly collapses into massive bodies at the origin of the solid core of the giant planets. - Inside this orbit, by contrast, the high density particles are preferentially selected by the vortices and assembled by local gravitational instabilities into planetesimals, massive enough to be released by the vortices and to grow later, in successive collisions, to form the terrestrial planets.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- March 1995
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/9501050
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/9501050
- Bibcode:
- 1995A&A...295L...1B
- Keywords:
-
- Astronomical Models;
- Cosmology;
- Gases;
- Gravitational Collapse;
- Planetary Evolution;
- Planetary Nebulae;
- Protoplanets;
- Vortices;
- Accretion Disks;
- Gravitational Effects;
- Planetary Mass;
- Planetary Orbits;
- Trapped Particles;
- Turbulent Diffusion;
- Astrophysics;
- PLANET FORMATION;
- SOLAR SYSTEM;
- VORTICES;
- ACCRETION DISKS;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted in A&