PHY390GMU

Summary: Planets are defined as celestial objects that’s true mass is ‘below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium that orbits a star or stellar remnant.’ This definition, however detailed, is not satisfactory to envelop the many complexities of space. The author argues an all-encompassing definition would be a formation based definition: planets are bodies formed through core accretion. To accomplish this, the author attempts to identify at what specific mass orbiting celestial objects no longer revolve around metal-rich solar-type dwarf stars. He theorizes that objects less than 10 times the mass of Jupiter formed through core accretion like giant planets, while object with mass greater than this amount through gravitational instability.   The author used clustering algorithms with 146 systems cataloging the planets forming through core accretion and through gravitational instability. The mass that separates the two clusters is determined to be the ...

Evidence of an upper bound on the masses of planets and its implications for giant planet formation Kevin C. Schlaufman The current existence of 10 M_jup objects orbiting nearby stars and floating freely in star-forming regions have confused many in the astronomical community. It is currently impossible to determine the origin of these objects and has come down to two working theories: formation through core accretion similar to giant gas planets or formation through gravitational instability similar to stars. Due to many unknowns about these objects, it has made it difficult to determine a clear upper limit for planets. However the differences between formation of core accretion or gravitation instability can be separated statistically. Giant planets equal to the mass of Jupiter prefer to orbit metal rich host stars, these indicative of formation through core accretion. While formations through gravitational instability occurs with equal efficiency regardless of...

I inserted an extra planet of 0.01 Solar masses at (-1.9, 1.9, 1.9) AU with velocity (1E-08, 1.2E-03, 1.8E-08) Au/day (for some reason it started my planet out at 1.65 AU instead of ~3.3 AU). This caused the most change in the inner planets. Mercury became unbound (e>1) about 1800 years in. Venus went out to ~5 AU about 2000 years in and was on the verge of becoming unbound. Earth went out to ~ 10 AU about 1500 years in and became unbound. Mars experience a relatively small change in semimajor axis; it slowly went inwards to 1 AU and started to go back out. Its eccentricity experienced severe oscillations, but it did not become unbound. It also experienced large oscillations in its inclination. Jupiter was the only outer planet that was significantly disturbed enough to bother mentioning. Its semimajor axis was relatively constant around 5 AU, but its eccentricity and inclination sharply increased and began to level off. An image of all 15 relevant plots is attached. The graphs of m...

[Images were embedded into the actual document when I wrote this. Here, they are just included as an attachment] How big can a planet get? Title: Evidence of an upper bound on the masses of planets and its implications for giant planet formation Author: Kevin C. Schlaufman First Author’s Institution: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University. Status: Published in the Astrophysical Journal, January 20, 2018.                Just as there is a fine line between dwarf planets and small “real” planets, there is also a fine line between high-mass planets and brown dwarfs. This paper explores the boundary of the latter. Currently, the International Astronomical Union has a limit on the upper mass of a planet; anything above about 13 Jupiter masses should be considered a brown dwarf, because at this mass the body should be able to fuse deuterium in its core. Schlaufman raises an objectio...

Homework 2 Question 1 Xavier Wingfield 2/21/18 Phys390                                       Can Exoplanets be too Massive to Mind? :                    A look at the limits of mass and what can be defined as a planet Jupiter is not a little planet. At a size of 1.898X10^27 Kg and a radius of about 69,911 Km Jupiter is easily the biggest thing we have here in our solar system. But even with its tremendous size, it's still dwarfed by our sound by a factor of about 10 times. But that brings up an interesting question: What if it didn't? What if Jupiter suddenly grew by a factor of about 10, what happens then? Is it still considered a planet? Dr. Kevin C. Schlaufman does't think so. This all comes back to the question of what defines the word "planet", what is considered a planet? Originally it was known as a celestial body that moves ...

Note attached image.