Issue |
A&A
Volume 428, Number 2, December III 2004
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 673 - 681 | |
Section | Planets and planetary systems | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20041109 | |
Published online | 26 November 2004 |
Stellar perturbations on the scattered disk
1
Uppsala Astronomical Observatory, Box 515, 75120 Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: hans.rickman@astro.uu.se
2
Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, BP 4229, 06304 Nice, France
3
INAF-IASF, via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Roma, Italy e-mail: giovanni@rm.iasf.cnr.it
Received:
16
April
2004
Accepted:
25
August
2004
We present a statistical model for
estimating the effects of stellar encounters on orbits in the outer
Solar System, focussing on the scattered disk at 103 AU from
the Sun. We describe a Monte Carlo simulation using those results and
apply it to the evolution of the scattered disk over 4 Gyr, finding
that a final perihelion distance distribution with an extended tail
reaching to very large values is to be expected. This would likely
result from a single close stellar encounter, in agreement with the
conclusion by Morbidelli & Levison ([CITE]). We estimate that the
newly discovered minor planet (90377) Sedna may be a typical
representative of such an extended scattered disk and that a few
more objects of the same size may reside at similar heliocentric
distances. There is a possibility that the bulk of the population,
which should have smaller perihelion distances, contains some very
large objects that may have contributed to sculpting the
Kuiper Belt.
We also find that the creation of an extended scattered disk by a
stellar encounter should have been accompanied by a huge influx of
large objects into the inner Solar System, but the timing of the
encounter is constrained by the fact that the scattered disk must
still have been quite massive. Thus it likely happened long before
the purported late heavy bombardment of the terrestrial planets.
Key words: comets: general / Kuiper Belt / minor planets, asteroids
© ESO, 2004
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.