Chemistry of atmospheres formed during accretion of the Earth and other terrestrial planets

- 1 - Chemistry of Atmospheres Formed during Accretion of the Earth and Other Terrestrial Planets

Ranges of Atmospheric Mass and Composition of Super-earth Exoplanets

Terrestrial-like exoplanets may obtain atmospheres from three primary sources: capture of nebular gases, degassing during accretion, and degassing from subsequent tectonic activity. Here we model degassing during accretion to estimate the range of atmospheric mass and composition on exoplanets ranging from 1 to 30 Earth masses. We use bulk compositions drawn from primitive and differentiated me...

High-resolution Simulations of the Final Assembly of Earth-like Planets 1: Terrestrial Accretion and Dynamics

The final stage in the formation of terrestrial planets consists of the accumulation of ∼ 1000-km “planetary embryos” and a swarm of billions of 1-10 km “planetesimals.” During this process, water-rich material is accreted by the terrestrial planets via impacts of water-rich bodies from beyond roughly 2.5 AU. We present results from five high-resolution dynamical simulations. These start from 1...

Water loss from terrestrial planets with \(CO_2\)-rich atmospheres

Water photolysis and hydrogen loss from the upper atmospheres of terrestrial planets is of fundamental importance to climate evolution but remains poorly understood in general. Here we present a range of calculations we performed to study the dependence of water loss rates from terrestrial planets on a range of atmospheric and external parameters. We show that CO2 can only cause significant wat...

Solar System Formation Deduced from Observations of Matter

Aspects of our Solar System’s formation are deduced from observations of the chemical nature of matter. Massive cores are indicative of terrestrial-planet-composition-similarity to enstatite chondrite meteorites, whose highly-reduced state of oxidation may be thermodynamically stable in solar matter only at elevated temperatures and pressures. Consistent with the formation of Earth as envisione...