scholarly journals Solar System chaos and the Paleocene–Eocene boundary age constrained by geology and astronomy

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 365 (6456) ◽  
pp. 926-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Zeebe ◽  
Lucas J. Lourens

Astronomical calculations reveal the Solar System’s dynamical evolution, including its chaoticity, and represent the backbone of cyclostratigraphy and astrochronology. An absolute, fully calibrated astronomical time scale has hitherto been hampered beyond ~50 million years before the present (Ma) because orbital calculations disagree before that age. Here, we present geologic data and a new astronomical solution (ZB18a) showing exceptional agreement from ~58 to 53 Ma. We provide a new absolute astrochronology up to 58 Ma and a new Paleocene–Eocene boundary age (56.01 ± 0.05 Ma). We show that the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) onset occurred near a 405-thousand-year (kyr) eccentricity maximum, suggesting an orbital trigger. We also provide an independent PETM duration (170 ± 30 kyr) from onset to recovery inflection. Our astronomical solution requires a chaotic resonance transition at ~50 Ma in the Solar System’s fundamental frequencies.

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1665-1699 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Westerhold ◽  
U. Röhl ◽  
T. Frederichs ◽  
S. M. Bohaty ◽  
J. C. Zachos

Abstract. To explore cause and consequences in past climate reconstructions highly accuracy age models are inevitable. The highly accurate astronomical calibration of the geological time scale beyond 40 million years critically depends on the accuracy of orbital models and radio-isotopic dating techniques. Discrepancies in the age dating of sedimentary successions and the lack of suitable records spanning the middle Eocene have prevented development of a continuous astronomically calibrated geological timescale for the entire Cenozoic Era. We now solve this problem by constructing an independent astrochronological stratigraphy based on Earth's stable 405 kyr eccentricity cycle between 41 and 48 million years ago (Ma) with new data from deep-sea sedimentary sequences in the South Atlantic Ocean. This new link completes the Paleogene astronomical time scale and confirms the intercalibration of radio-isotopic and astronomical dating methods back through the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 55.930 Ma) and the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary (66.022 Ma). Coupling of the Paleogene 405 kyr cyclostratigraphic frameworks across the middle Eocene further paves the way for extending the Astronomical Time Scale (ATS) into the Mesozoic.


2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederik J. Hilgen ◽  
Hemmo A. Abels ◽  
Klaudia F. Kuiper ◽  
Lucas J. Lourens ◽  
Mariëtte Wolthers

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S236) ◽  
pp. 31-34
Author(s):  
E. L. Kiseleva ◽  
V. V. Emel'yanenko

AbstractThe dynamical interrelation between resonant trans-Neptunian objects and short-period comets is studied. Initial orbits of resonant objects are based on computations in the model of the outward transport of objects during Neptune's migration in the early history of the outer Solar system. The dynamical evolution of this population is investigated for 4.5 Gyr, using a symplectic integrator. Our calculations show that resonant trans-Neptunian objects give a substantial contribution to the planetary region. We have estimated that the relative fraction of objects captured per year from the 2/3 resonance to Jupiter-family orbits with perihelion distances q<2.5 AU is 0.4×10−10 near the present epoch.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (S325) ◽  
pp. 263-265
Author(s):  
Rustam Guliyev ◽  
Ayyub Guliyev

AbstractIn the present work we investigate the possible relationship of long-period comets with five large and distant trans-Neptunian bodies (Sedna, Eris, 2007 OR10, 2012 VP113and 2008 ST291) in order to determine the probability of the transfer of a part of these kind of comets to the inner of the Solar System. To identify such relationships, we studied the relative positions of the comet orbits and listed TNOs. Using numerical integration methods, we examined dynamical evolution of the comets and have found one encounter of comet C/1861J1 and Eris.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (2) ◽  
pp. 1807-1825
Author(s):  
Katja Stock ◽  
Maxwell X Cai ◽  
Rainer Spurzem ◽  
M B N Kouwenhoven ◽  
Simon Portegies Zwart

ABSTRACT Despite the discovery of thousands of exoplanets in recent years, the number of known exoplanets in star clusters remains tiny. This may be a consequence of close stellar encounters perturbing the dynamical evolution of planetary systems in these clusters. Here, we present the results from direct N-body simulations of multiplanetary systems embedded in star clusters containing N = 8k, 16k, 32k, and 64k stars. The planetary systems, which consist of the four Solar system giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are initialized in different orbital configurations, to study the effect of the system architecture on the dynamical evolution of the entire planetary system, and on the escape rate of the individual planets. We find that the current orbital parameters of the Solar system giants (with initially circular orbits, as well as with present-day eccentricities) and a slightly more compact configuration, have a high resilience against stellar perturbations. A configuration with initial mean-motion resonances of 3:2, 3:2, and 5:4 between the planets, which is inspired by the Nice model, and for which the two outermost planets are usually ejected within the first 105 yr, is in many cases stabilized due to the removal of the resonances by external stellar perturbation and by the rapid ejection of at least one planet. Assigning all planets the same mass of 1 MJup almost equalizes the survival fractions. Our simulations reproduce the broad diversity amongst observed exoplanet systems. We find not only many very wide and/or eccentric orbits, but also a significant number of (stable) retrograde orbits.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (3) ◽  
pp. 3035-3044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Alvarez-Candal ◽  
Carmen Ayala-Loera ◽  
Ricardo Gil-Hutton ◽  
José Luis Ortiz ◽  
Pablo Santos-Sanz ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The study of the visible colours of the trans-Neptunian objects opened a discussion almost 20 yr ago which, in spite of the increase in the amount of available data, seems far from subside. Visible colours impose constraints to the current theories of the early dynamical evolution of the Solar system such as the environment of formation, initial surface composition, and how (if) they were scattered to regions closer to the inner planets. In this paper, we present an updated version of our data base of absolute colours and relative phase coefficients for 117 objects. We define the absolute colours as the difference of the absolute magnitudes HV − HR, and the relative phase coefficient as the difference of the slopes of the phase curves Δβ. These were obtained joining our own observations plus data from the literature. The methodology has been introduced in previous works and here we expand in some interesting results, in particular the strong anticorrelation found between HV − HR and Δβ, which means that redder objects have steeper phase curves in the R filter, while bluer objects have steeper phase curves in the V filter. We analyse a series of results published in the literature in view of our data base, which is free of phase effects, and show that their statistical meaning is not very strong. We point out that phase-colouring and observational errors play an important role in the understanding of these proposed relationships.


2019 ◽  
Vol 489 (3) ◽  
pp. 4311-4321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell X Cai ◽  
S Portegies Zwart ◽  
M B N Kouwenhoven ◽  
Rainer Spurzem

ABSTRACT As of 2019 August, among the more than 4000 confirmed exoplanets, only one has been detected in a globular cluster (GC) M4. The scarce of exoplanet detections motivates us to employ direct N-body simulations to investigate the dynamical stability of planets in young massive clusters (YMC), which are potentially the progenitors of GCs. In an N = 128 k cluster of virial radius 1.7 pc (comparable to Westerlund-1), our simulations show that most wide-orbit planets (a ≥ 20 au) will be ejected within a time-scale of 10 Myr. Interestingly, more than $70{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of planets with a < 5 au survive in the 100 Myr simulations. Ignoring planet–planet scattering and tidal damping, the survivability at t Myr as a function of initial semimajor axis a0 in au in such a YMC can be described as fsurv(a0, t) = −0.33log10(a0)(1 − e−0.0482t) + 1. Upon ejection, about $28.8{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of free-floating planets (FFPs) have sufficient speeds to escape from the host cluster at a crossing time-scale. The other FFPs will remain bound to the cluster potential, but the subsequent dynamical evolution of the stellar system can result in the delayed ejection of FFPs from the host cluster. Although a full investigation of planet population in GCs requires extending the simulations to multiGyr, our results suggest that wide-orbit planets and free-floating planets are unlikely to be found in GCs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (14) ◽  
pp. 4214-4217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin Batygin ◽  
Greg Laughlin

The statistics of extrasolar planetary systems indicate that the default mode of planet formation generates planets with orbital periods shorter than 100 days and masses substantially exceeding that of the Earth. When viewed in this context, the Solar System is unusual. Here, we present simulations which show that a popular formation scenario for Jupiter and Saturn, in which Jupiter migrates inward from a > 5 astronomical units (AU) to a ≈ 1.5 AU before reversing direction, can explain the low overall mass of the Solar System’s terrestrial planets, as well as the absence of planets with a < 0.4 AU. Jupiter’s inward migration entrained s ≳ 10−100 km planetesimals into low-order mean motion resonances, shepherding and exciting their orbits. The resulting collisional cascade generated a planetesimal disk that, evolving under gas drag, would have driven any preexisting short-period planets into the Sun. In this scenario, the Solar System’s terrestrial planets formed from gas-starved mass-depleted debris that remained after the primary period of dynamical evolution.


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