NEPTUNE SCATTERED PLANETESIMALS COULD HAVE SCULPTED THE PRIMORDIAL EDGEWORTH-KUIPER BELT

Authors
MORBIDELLI A VALSECCHI GB
Citation
A. Morbidelli et Gb. Valsecchi, NEPTUNE SCATTERED PLANETESIMALS COULD HAVE SCULPTED THE PRIMORDIAL EDGEWORTH-KUIPER BELT, Icarus, 128(2), 1997, pp. 464-468
Citations number
23
Categorie Soggetti
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Journal title
Icarus → ACNP
ISSN journal
00191035
Volume
128
Issue
2
Year of publication
1997
Pages
464 - 468
Database
ISI
SICI code
0019-1035(1997)128:2<464:NSPCHS>2.0.ZU;2-B
Abstract
We show that Neptune-scattered planetesimals of a few Earth masses cou ld have excited the eccentricities of the vast majority of bodies in t he primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. This could result in sculpting th e belt to its currently observed structure and in depleting most of it s primordial mass by: (i) injecting most of the bodies from the stable into the unstable regions in the inner belt; (ii) enhancing the role of mutual catastrophic collisions in the outer belt. (C) 1997 Academic Press.