MANDELL , Avi M.

Jupiter and Saturn formed in a few million years (ref. 1) from a gas-dominated protoplanetary disk, and were susceptible to gas-driven migration of their orbits on timescales of only ~100,000 years (ref. 2). Hydrodynamic simulations show that these giant planets can undergo a two-stage, inward-then-outward, migration. The terrestrial planets...

A new model for terrestrial planet formation (Hansen [2009]. Astrophys. J., 703, 1131-1140; Walsh, K.J., et al. [2011]. Nature, 2011, 206-209) has explored accretion in a truncated protoplanetary disk, and found that such a configuration is able to reproduce the distribution of mass among the planets in the Solar System, especially the...