Constraining the Size of the Protosolar Nebula

Details Constraining the Size of the Protosolar Nebula Constraining the Size of the Protosolar Nebula

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011ess.....2.3405k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #34.05

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Observations indicate that the circumstellar gaseous disks around young stars vary significantly in size, ranging from 10s to 1000s of AU. As we try to unravel the events leading to the formation of our own solar system, we would like to understand the properties of our own primordial disk. Fortunately, the dynamics of objects in the Kuiper belt provide interesting constraints. After Jupiter formed, it must have scattered a significant number of planetesimals into eccentric orbits. If there had been a massive, extended protoplanetary disk at that time, then the disk would have excited Kozai oscillations in the scattered objects, driving some into high-inclination, low-eccentricity orbits. The dissipation of the gaseous disk would strand some objects in these high-inclination orbits; orbits that are stable on Gyr timescales. The fact that we have yet to observe Kuiper belt objects on these orbits therefore places strict limits size of the disk at the time of planet formation, revealing important information about the environment from which our solar system emerged.

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