Aerodynamics of solid bodies in the solar nebula.
Abstract
In a centrally condensed solar nebula, the pressure gradient in the gas causes the nebula to rotate more slowly than the free orbital velocity, and drag forces cause the orbits of solid bodies to decay. Their motions have been investigated analytically and numerically for all applicable drag laws. The maximum radial velocity developed is independent of the drag law and insensitive to the nebular mass. Results are presented for a variety of model nebulae. Radial velocities depend strongly on particle size, reaching values of the order of 10,000 cm/s for meter-sized objects. Possible consequences include: mixing of solid matter within the solar nebula on short time scales, collisions leading to rapid accumulation of planetesimals, fractionation of bodies by size or density, and production of regions of anomalous composition in the solar nebula.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- July 1977
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/180.2.57
- Bibcode:
- 1977MNRAS.180...57W
- Keywords:
-
- Aerodynamic Drag;
- Interplanetary Dust;
- Nebulae;
- Radial Velocity;
- Solids;
- Sun;
- Equations Of Motion;
- Fractionation;
- Orbital Velocity;
- Particle Collisions;
- Particle Motion;
- Pressure Gradients;
- Stellar Models;
- Wind Velocity;
- Astrophysics