ASTM001/MTH724U

SOLAR SYSTEM
Carl Murray (+ Craig Agnor)

Lecture 12:
Planet Formation &
Structure
 Planetary Formation
• Formation of solid particles in the gas
environment and their settlement near the
mid-plane of the nebula
• Collisional growth of solid particles to
planetesimals (km-sized objects)
• Gravitational accumulation of planetesimals
into planetary embryos (with approximately
lunar-to-Mars masses)
• Planetary formation
 Gravitational focusing
• For sufficiently small bodies, the effects of
gravity can be ignored for the purposes of
determining whether they will physically
collide
• A massive body (e.g. a planet) can
gravitationally focus other bodies towards it,
and as a result has a collision cross-section
that is much larger than its physical cross-
section
 gravity
ignored

planet collision cross-section πR2

gravitational
focusing impact
parameter

planet collision cross-section πb2

 vr

vr is velocity of impacting body relative to large

body (at large distances)
Conservation of energy:

Hence: (1) escape velocity

By conservation of angular momentum:
hence (2)
at large distances at impact

Eliminating v between (1) and (2) gives:

and

and the cross-section for collisions becomes

enhancement due to
gravitational focusing
 collision rate =
(number density)
x (collision cross-section)
x (velocity through the population)

Mass accretion rate:

ρ can be written in terms of the surface density

(growing body embedded within swarm of
planetesimals):

where H is the disk scale height.

The mass accretion rate is then:

From (1): gives

But

Hence or
Hence and so

giving ; Let when

Hence and

i.e.

In this regime the increasing gravitational focusing

factor means that accretion cross-section varies as
R4; also M→∞ in a finite time, allowing much more
rapid growth.
• In this situation, the planetary embryo rapidly
grows larger than any other planetesimal, which
can lead to runaway growth.
• The runaway embryo can grow so much larger
than the surrounding planetesimals that the
gravitational enhancement factor exceeds 1000.
• As embryos approach this maximum value, larger
embryos take longer to double in mass than do
smaller ones, although embryos of all masses
continue their runaway growth relative to
surrounding planetesimals.
• This phase of rapid accretion of planetary
embryos is know as oligarchic growth.
In the case where we have

Hence

and gravitational focusing is not important;

slow growth results.
• Runaway accretion requires low random
velocities, and thus small excursions of
planetesimals.
• The planetary embryo feeding zone is limited
to the annulus of planetesimals which it can
gravitationally perturb into intersecting orbits.
• Rapid runaway growth ceases when the
planetary embryo has consumed most of the
planetesimals within its reach.
 Effect of embedded protoplanet on circular orbit
Murray & Dermott (1999)

passing zone

chaotic zone
horseshoe zone
A mass M on a nearly circular orbit of radius r can
experience collisions with particles only with critical
separation,

where RH is the Hill’s radius and K ≈4 .

The mass of a planetary embryo which has accreted all
of the planetesimals within an annulus of width 2Δr is

where σp is the surface density. Setting Δr = 4RH, we

obtain the isolation mass, which is the largest mass to
which a planetary embryo orbiting a one solar mass
star can grow by runaway accretion.
The isolation mass is given by:

For a minimum mass solar nebula the mass at

which runaway must have ceased in the Earth’s
accretion zone would be about 6 lunar masses
and in Jupiter’s accretion zone roughly the mass
of the Earth.
 Formation of the
Terrestrial Planets
• The self-limiting nature of runaway growth
implies that massive planetary embryos form
at regular intervals in semi-major axis.
• The agglomeration of these embryos into a
small number of widely spaced terrestrial
planets necessarily requires large orbital
eccentricities, significant radial mixing, and
giant impacts.
 Formation of the
Terrestrial Planets
• At the end of the runaway accretion phase,
most of the original mass is contained in the
large bodies, so their random velocities are
no longer strongly damped by energy
partition with the small planetesimals.
• Mutual gravitational scattering can pump up
the relative velocities of the planetary
embryos to values sufficient to ensure their
mutual accumulation into planets.
 Formation of the
Terrestrial Planets
• A planetary embryo can form a proto-
atmosphere as it accretes solid bodies.
• A massive proto-atmosphere increases the
surface temperature of a protoplanet by a
blanketing effect.
• Calculations show that this effect becomes
important when the growing planet’s mass
exceeds 0.1M⊕.
 Formation of the
Terrestrial Planets
• When the planet’s mass exceeds 0.2M the ⊕
surface temperature exceeds ~1600K which
is the melting temperature for most
planetary materials.
• Heavy material migrates downwards, while
lighter elements float on top.
• This process of differentiation liberates a
large amount of gravitational energy in the
planet’s interior.
 Formation of the
Terrestrial Planets
• Enough energy can be released to cause
melting of a large fraction of the planet’s
interior, allowing the planet to differentiate
throughout.
 Formation of the
Giant Planets
The large amounts of H and He contained in Jupiter
and Saturn imply that these planets must have formed
within ~107y before the gas in the protoplanetary disk
was swept away. Any formation theory of giant
planets should account for these timescales. Two
scenarios for the formation have been studied
extensively:
• Gravitational collapse, or gas-instability hypothesis
• Core-instability hypothesis – planetary accretion and
gravitational accumulation of gas
 Gas-Instability Hypothesis

If the protoplanetary disk was extremely massive

(~1 solar mass) it would be unstable to clumping.
Under such circumstances the giant planets could
have formed by gravitational collapse, just like
the Sun, in sub-condensations of the nebula.
 Core-Instability Hypothesis
• The core of the giant planet forms first by
accretion of planetesimals, while only a small
amont of gas is accreted.
• Planetary embryos with M ≥ 0.1M ⊕ have a
surface escape velocities larger than the sound
speed in the gaseous protoplanetary disk.
• Such a growing planetary core first attains a
quasi-static atmosphere which undergoes Kelvin-
Helmholtz contraction as the energy released by
the planetesimal and gas accretion is radiated
away from the surface.
 Core-Instability Hypothesis
• The contraction timescale is determined by the
efficiency of radiative transfer.
• The gas accretion rate, which is initially very
slow, accelerates with time and becomes
comparable to the planetesimal bombardment
rate after the core reaches ~10–20 M⊕.
• Once the gaseous component of the growing
planet exceeds the solid component, gas
accretion becomes very rapid and leads to
runaway accretion of gas.