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Title: Age of Jupiter inferred from the distinct genetics and formation times of meteorites

Journal Article · · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [2]
  1. Univ. of Munster, Muenster (Germany); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Munster, Muenster (Germany)

The age of Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System, is still unknown. Gas-giant planet formation likely involved the growth of large solid cores, followed by the accumulation of gas onto these cores. Thus, the gas-giant cores must have formed before dissipation of the solar nebula, which likely occurred within less than 10 My after Solar System formation. Although such rapid accretion of the gas-giant cores has successfully been modeled, until now it has not been possible to date their formation. Here, using molybdenum and tungsten isotope measurements on iron meteorites, we demonstrate that meteorites derive from two genetically distinct nebular reservoirs that coexisted and remained spatially separated between ~1 My and ~3–4 My after Solar System formation. The most plausible mechanism for this efficient separation is the formation of Jupiter, opening a gap in the disk and preventing the exchange of material between the two reservoirs. As such, our results indicate that Jupiter’s core grew to ~20 Earth masses within <1 My, followed by a more protracted growth to ~50 Earth masses until at least ~3–4 My after Solar System formation. Furthermore, Jupiter is the oldest planet of the Solar System, and its solid core formed well before the solar nebula gas dissipated, consistent with the core accretion model for giant planet formation.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1399762
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-731226
Journal Information:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 114, Issue 26; ISSN 0027-8424
Publisher:
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (United States)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 346 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Origin and Evolution of Distinct Molybdenum Isotopic Variabilities within Carbonaceous and Noncarbonaceous Reservoirs journal September 2019
Isotopic Dichotomy among Meteorites and Its Bearing on the Protoplanetary Disk journal February 2018
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Including Dust Coagulation in Hydrodynamic Models of Protoplanetary Disks: Dust Evolution in the Vicinity of a Jupiter-mass Planet journal November 2019
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Implications of Philae Magnetometry Measurements at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for the Nebular Field of the Outer Solar System journal April 2019
Nucleosynthetic Sr–Nd Isotope Correlations in Chondrites: Evidence for Nebular Thermal Processing and Dust Transportation in the Early Solar System journal July 2019
IDP-like Asteroids Formed Later than 5 Myr After Ca–Al-rich Inclusions journal April 2019
The Effect of Jupiter's Formation on the Distribution of Refractory Elements and Inclusions in Meteorites journal September 2018
Extremely 54 Cr- and 50 Ti-rich Presolar Oxide Grains in a Primitive Meteorite: Formation in Rare Types of Supernovae and Implications for the Astrophysical Context of Solar System Birth journal March 2018
Probing the Protosolar Disk Using Dust Filtering at Gaps in the Early Solar System journal July 2019
The Ophiuchus DIsk Survey Employing ALMA (ODISEA): Disk Dust Mass Distributions across Protostellar Evolutionary Classes journal April 2019
An Ideal Testbed for Planet–Disk Interaction: Two Giant Protoplanets in Resonance Shaping the PDS 70 Protoplanetary Disk journal October 2019
Planet-driven Spiral Arms in Protoplanetary Disks. II. Implications journal May 2018
Chondrule Formation by the Jovian Sweeping Secular Resonance journal October 2019
Extremely $^{54}$Cr- and $^{50}$Ti-rich presolar oxide grains in a primitive meteorite: Formation in rare types of supernovae and implications for the astrophysical context of solar system birth text January 2018
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The Galilean Satellites Formed Slowly from Pebbles text January 2019
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Molybdenum Isotopes in Presolar Silicon Carbide Grains: Details of s -process Nucleosynthesis in Parent Stars and Implications for r - and p -processes journal May 2019
Tracking Dust Grains during Transport and Growth in Protoplanetary Disks journal November 2019
Jupiter's Composition Suggests its Core Assembled Exterior to the N 2 Snowline journal October 2019
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