![]() Initially, the researchers worried that the asteroid belt would spoil the Saturn hypothesis. They also computed which planetesimals would pass by Jupiter, reaching the asteroid belt. To test it, Ronnet and colleagues ran computer simulations, following the trajectories of 5,000 planetesimals, as well as Jupiter and Saturn, in the early solar system.To save computing time they eliminated each planetesimal that came close enough to Jupiter to be trapped in its gravitational sphere of influence. "I knew it might work, but I wasn’t sure," he says. Ronnet recalls struggling to develop this theory. Giant planets such as Jupiter can carve out such a gap as they form within the disk. Simulating a Solution This illustration shows a large gap in the dust-and-gas disk surrounding a young star. So Saturn could have dispersed pebbles that were stuck in the midplane of the circumsolar disk, allowing Jupiter to capture them. When the planets were forming, their orbits were still migrating - resulting in a solar system that looked very different from the one we see now, Saturn in particular is thought to have been in an orbit much closer to that of Jupiter. He realized that Jupiter’s massive neighbor Saturn might be involved. One of the astronomers who investigated this impasse is Thomas Ronnet (Astrophysical Laboratory of Marseille,France). ![]() "This aspect has often been overlooked or simplified in previous models for the formation of the Galilean satellites we assumed that the gas and dust was just there, out of nowhere," he says. René Heller (University of Göttingen, Germany), who was not involved in the new study, notes that astronomers have long been lacking a mechanism to deliver solid material to Jupiter’s circumplanetary disk. It’s likely that the Galilean moons began forming within Jupiter’s circumplanetary disk.But even as the giant collected gas from the circumsolar disk, it was carving the gap that would cut off its disk from material that would have helped build its moons. As Jupiter came together, it acquired its own disk by sweeping clean a gap in the gaseous disk around the Sun. The dust quickly glommed together into pebble-sized chunks, out of which the planets and most moons formed. Now, scientists have conducted a study to suggest that Saturn might be to blame.ĭuring the solar system’s earliest years, a huge rotating disk of gas and dust surrounded the Sun. ![]() These so-called Galilean satellites - Io, Europe, Ganymede, and Callisto - are of nearly planetary size.īut scientists haven’t been able to explain how these moons became so big. Four of these moons are large enough to be visible with even a small telescope. Jupiter, with its 67 known moons, can be viewed as a miniature solar system revolving around the Sun. The Jovian moon Europa, as captured by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Scientists propose that Saturn’s meddling helped create the four giant Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |