Jupiter’s dust ring may have built early planets
Scientists have identified what may have been one of the Solar System’s most important “planet building factories,” a dusty ring beyond Jupiter that produced multiple generations of early space rocks over millions of years, reports a Qazinform News Agency correspondent.
According to a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research found that a high-pressure ring of gas and dust just outside Jupiter’s orbit acted as a powerful “dust trap,” helping form planetesimals, the building blocks of planets and asteroids.
The study suggests the region created planetesimals with very different chemical compositions during the Solar System’s early history about 4.6 billion years ago.
“Different types of planetesimals apparently formed in the same region of the early dust and gas disk, only at different times. The region just outside Jupiter's orbit offered excellent conditions for this,” said Joanna Drążkowska, head of the Lise Meitner Group on planet formation.
Researchers believe that after Jupiter formed, the giant planet cleared material around its orbit, creating a gap in the surrounding disk of gas and dust. This process also generated a ring-shaped area of higher gas pressure that trapped large amounts of dust and pebble-sized particles.
Using advanced computer simulations, scientists tracked how tiny particles collided, drifted and accumulated over a period of nearly two million years. The models showed that the dust trap continuously produced different generations of planetesimals as the balance of materials changed over time.
The findings may help explain the origins of several mysterious meteorite groups discovered on Earth, particularly carbonaceous chondrites, ancient meteorites rich in carbon believed to have formed beyond Jupiter.
“For the first time, we have succeeded in accurately reproducing the results of laboratory studies of meteorites using computer simulations of the early Solar System,” said MPS Director and cosmochemist Thorsten Kleine.
“There is strong evidence that dust traps were the preferred birthplace of planetesimals in our Solar System,” Drążkowska added.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that researchers in Germany had developed a light driven method to create highly strained “housane” molecules, a breakthrough that could support the development of new medicines and advanced materials.