81 research outputs found
The Formation of the Oort Cloud in Open Cluster Environments
We study the influence of an open cluster environment on the formation and
current structure of the Oort cloud. To do this, we have run 19 different
simulations of the formation of the Oort Cloud for 4.5 Gyrs. In each
simulation, the solar system spends its first 100 Myrs in a different open
cluster environment before transitioning to its current field environment. We
find that, compared to forming in the field environment, the inner Oort Cloud
is preferentially loaded with comets while the Sun resides in the open cluster
and that most of this material remains locked in the interior of the cloud for
the next 4.4 Gyrs. In addition, the outer Oort Cloud trapping efficiencies we
observe in our simulations are lower than previous formation models by about a
factor of 2, possibly implying an even more massive early planetesimal disk.
Furthermore, some of our simulations reproduce the orbits of observed extended
scattered disk objects, which may serve as an observational constraint on the
Sun's early environment. Depending on the particular open cluster environment,
the properties of the inner Oort Cloud and extended scattered disk can vary
widely. On the other hand, the outer portions of the Oort Cloud in each of our
simulations are all similar.Comment: 65 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables, Accepted to Icaru
Reassessing the Source of Long-Period Comets
We present numerical simulations to model the production of observable
long-period comets (LPCs) from the Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of icy bodies
surrounding the Sun. We show that inner Oort Cloud objects can penetrate
Jupiter's orbit via a largely unexplored dynamical pathway, and they are an
important, if not the dominant, source of known LPCs. We use this LPC
production to place observationally motivated constraints on the population and
mass of the inner Oort Cloud, which are consistent with giant planet formation
theory. These constraints indicate that only one comet shower producing late
Eocene bombardment levels has likely occurred since the Cambrian Explosion,
making these phenomena an improbable cause of additional extinction events.Comment: Originally published in Science (9/4/09), 30 pages, 9 figures, main
article and online material combine
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