Using Animations to Study the Formation of Gas Giant Planets via the Core Accretion Model

Details Using Animations to Study the Formation of Gas Giant Planets via the Core Accretion Model Using Animations to Study the Formation of Gas Giant Planets via the Core Accretion Model

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufm.p12b..07h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #P12B-07

Biology

[5205] Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology / Formation Of Stars And Planets

Scientific paper

With the ever increasing number of extrasolar planets being discovered (373 as of 8/13/09 quoted by The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia: exoplanet.eu) and the recognition of their diverse nature it is very important to understand the formation processes of the gas giant planets. The core accretion model has successfully explained many features of the formation of gas giant planets in the Solar System (Pollack et al. 1996, Hubickyj et al. 2005) and it has provided an explanation of the characteristics of exoplanets. One example is the observed frequency of planets around stars with a high metal content (e.g. Kornet et al. 2005, Valenti and Fischer 2008). Improvements to the input physics to our computer model have resulted in the very important result that gas giant planets (i.e. Jupiter) can form via the core accretion model on a timescale that agrees with observations of protoplanetary disks (Hillenbrand 2008). These observations set the formation time to about 3 to 5 million years. We will present our recent results (Hubickyj et al. 2005,Lissauer et al. 2009) in the form of animations. Our models generate a substantial amount of data. Having published plots of the important values of our study: mass and radius growth, luminosity, and accretion rates as a function of time, we are now ready to study the second tier of information from our recorded data. We examine the energy profiles within the envelope as it evolves, the location and changes of the convective layers, and the location of the mass deposited by the planetesimals in the envelope as the protoplanet evolves. We find that by animating the data we can study the internal processes in the growing envelope of the protoplanet. The qualitative nature of the processes in the protoplanetary envelope is easily discerned in these animations and a deeper insight to the core accretion processes in the gas giant planets is gained. Hillenbrand, L. A. 2008. Disk-dispersal and planet-formation timescales. Physica Scripta 130, pp. 14024 Hubickyj, O., P. Bodenheimer, J. J. Lissauer 2005. Accretion of the gaseous envelope of Jupiter around a 5 10 Earth-mass core. Icarus, 179, 415--431. Kornet, K., P. Bodenheimer, M. Różyczka. and T. F. Stepinski 2005. Formation of giant planets in disks with different metallicities. Astron. Astrophys 430, 1133--1138. Lissauer, J. J., O. Hubickyj, G. D'Angelo, and P. Bodenheimer 2009. Models of Jupiter's growth incorporating thermal and hydrodynamic constraints. Icarus 199, 338--350. Pollack J. B., O. Hubickyj, P. Bodenheimer, J. J. Lissauer, M. Podolak, and Y. Greenzweig 1996. Formation of the giant planets by concurrent accretion of solids and gas. Icarus 67, 409--443. Valenti and Fischer 2008. Relationship between giant planet frequency and stellar metallicity. Physica Scripta 130, pp. 14003.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Using Animations to Study the Formation of Gas Giant Planets via the Core Accretion Model does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Using Animations to Study the Formation of Gas Giant Planets via the Core Accretion Model, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Using Animations to Study the Formation of Gas Giant Planets via the Core Accretion Model will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1767433