NEWSNOTES

Astronomers thought they knew how Jupiter and Saturn

formed. However, the recent discovery of planets around other
stars has forced a reevaluation.
As Alan P. Boss (Carnegie Institution of Washington) explains in the June 20th Science, the presumed scenario had
been a two-step process. First, rocky planetesimals collided in
the outer solar system and stuck together, forming bodies with
perhaps the mass of 10 Earths. These protoplanets then swept
up gas from the solar nebula, gaining their current bulk. This
story line seemed to explain our solar systems huge members
adequately. But newfound extrasolar planets many times the
mass of Jupiter have strained the theory.
Boss explains that it would take at least one million years for
a rocky, icy core to accumulate a Jupiters worth of gas. But many
of the new extrasolar planets are much larger. Timing is important because a Sun-like star dissipates what remains of its surrounding nebula within 10 million years. If dispersion happens
more quickly, planets could grow to only the size of Uranus and
Neptune. Thus, he concludes, there doesnt seem to be enough
time to make enormous planets with a two-step birth process.
To rectify the situation Boss resurrected a previously rejected
single-step route, in which the giant planets coalesced from gas
and dust all at once. He simulated a solar nebula using hydrodynamic calculations, which track the motions, densities, and
temperatures of millions of particles in a gas or fluid. The threedimensional computer models of this nebula revealed that
pockets of denser material collected after a few hundred years.
During the next 100,000 years or so, the material in these
giant gaseous protoplanets would stratify as the clumps of
matter continued to collapse. Eventually dust would sink into
the planet, where heat would forge it into a solid core. Boss estimates that a region of the nebula with the mass of Jupiter
would contain up to 6 Earths worth of elements heavier than
helium. Thus, the solid cores of Jupiter and Saturn may be
only one-tenth to one-third as massive as once believed.
Another problem with the extrasolar planets has been how

ALAN P. BOSS

A New Recipe for Giant Planets

Computer modeling of disks of gas and dust reveals that clumps can
grow as large as Jupiter before the central star (not shown here) blows
its surrounding nebula away.

to explain why most of them orbit their parent stars closer

than Mercury orbits our Sun. At that distance, there shouldnt
have been enough material to collect into giant planets. However, according to William R. Ward (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), a protoplanetary nebula can sap angular momentum from
a forming planet, forcing it to drop into a smaller orbit. Writing in the June 20th Astrophysical Journal Letters, Ward explains how tidal forces in the disk of gas act to decay orbits
possibly going as far as destroying some nascent planetary systems altogether.

JASON A. SURACE / SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE

How Quasars Came to Be

24

IRAS 08572+3915

IRAS 12071-0444

Pks 1345+12

Mrk 463

December 1997 Sky & Telescope

Despite the enigmatic nature of quasars, the mysteries behind

these blazing beacons which once emitted hundreds of times
more light than do normal galaxies are being painstakingly
unraveled. One question that astronomers seem to be tackling
with some success involves quasar origins. Recent Hubble Space
Telescope observations buttress the notion that the immediate
precursors to quasars are so-called warm ultraluminous infrared
galaxies (ULIGs). As the visible-light Hubble images shown here
indicate, most of these galaxies display signs of merger events.
Some, like PKS 1345+12 (lower left), appear to have two nuclei.
Others, notably IRAS 08572+3915 (upper left), exhibit the tidal
tails expected from the close passage of two galaxies doomed to
coalesce. Merging activity is thought to account for the extremely high infrared luminosities of ULIGs, whose spectra resemble
those of quasars. And Hubble images of fully fledged quasars
show signs of mergers that have largely run their course (S&T:
April 1995, page 11). Jason A. Surace (University of Hawaii) and
his colleagues will elaborate on these findings in the Astrophysical Journal for January 1, 1998.

1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.