Tuesday 27 April 2010

solar system - How did Batygin estimate when Planet Nine was ejected?

Page 12 of Batygin & Brown (2016) says that a speculative formation scenario can be drawn from recent solar system formation simulations by Bromley & Kenyon and by Izidoro et al. These suggest that the core of a nascent ice giant may have been ejected very early in the solar system's history in order to explain the properties of the observed planets; the formation of Uranus and Neptune was probably accompanied by at least one other ice giant.



The source of the claim you mention is actually an article by Eric Hand in Science Magazine. He points out that possibly, to explain why this planet was ejected yet still remains part of the solar system in a much wider orbit, then you need it to have been slowed down by residual gas in the protosolar disk. So I assume the 10 million year is an (uncertain) upper limit on the dispersal of the disk and I would guess the 3 million year lower limit is just how long it takes to form a 10 Earth mass ice giant core at the distance of Neptune.

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