SCATTERING OF PLANETESIMALS FROM THE FEEDING ZONE OF PROXIMA CENTAURI C (original) (raw)
Related papers
Stable Orbits in the Feeding Zone of the Planet Proxima Centauri c
Solar System Research, 2023
Estimates of the size of the feeding zone of the planet Proxima Centauri c have been made at initial orbital eccentricities of planetesimals equal to 0.02 or 0.15. The research is based on the results of modeling of the evolution of planetesimals' orbits under the influence of the star and planets Proxima Centauri c and b. The considered time interval reached a billion years. It was found that after the accumulation of the planet Proxima Centauri c some planetesimals may have continued to move in stable elliptical orbits within its feeding zone, largely cleared of planetesimals. Usually such planetesimals can move in some resonances with the planet (Proxima Centauri c), for example, in the resonances 1 : 1 (as Jupiter Trojans), 5 : 4 and 3 : 4 and usually have small eccentricities. Some planetesimals that moved for a long time (1-2 million years) along chaotic orbits fell into the resonances 5 : 2 and 3 : 10 with the planet Proxima Centauri c and moved in them for at least tens of millions of years.
Delivery of icy planetesimals to inner planets in the Proxima Centauri planetary system
Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 2023
The estimates of the delivery of icy planetesimals from the feeding zone of Proxima Centauri c (with mass equal to 7m E , m E is the mass of the Earth) to inner planets b and d were made. They included the studies of the total mass of planetesimals in the feeding zone of planet c and the probabilities of collisions of such planetesimals with inner planets. This total mass could be about 10-15m E. It was estimated based on studies of the ratio of the mass of planetesimals ejected into hyperbolic orbits to the mass of planetesimals collided with forming planet c. At integration of the motion of planetesimals, the gravitational influence of planets c and b and the star was taken into account. In most series of calculations, planetesimals collided with planets were excluded from integrations. Based on estimates of the mass of planetesimals ejected into hyperbolic orbits, it was concluded that during the growth of the mass of planet c the semi-major axis of its orbit could decrease by at least a factor of 1.5. Depending on possible gravitational scattering due to mutual encounters of planetesimals, the total mass of material delivered by planetesimals from the feeding zone of planet c to planet b was estimated to be between 0.002m E and 0.015m E. Probably, the amount of water delivered to Proxima Centauri b exceeded the mass of water in Earth's oceans. The amount of material delivered to planet d could be a little less than that delivered to planet b.
Astronomy at the epoch of multimessenger studies. Proceedings of the VAK-2021 conference ( Aug 23–28, 2021). Ed. by A.M. Cherepashchuk et al. — Moscow, Janus-K. 2022. P. 238-239, 2022
The values of the probability of a collision of a planetesimal with the Earth were typically greater for smaller distancesR from the Sun at 3< R <40 AU. The probability varied from about 10-6 at R~30-40 AU to 10-3 −10-2 at R about 3.2-3.3 AU. Though only one of several hundreds of planetesimals from the zone of exoplanetcin the Proxima Centauri system reached the inner exoplanet b, it often collides with the planet b. The probability of a collision of such planetesimal with the exoplanet b could be about several 10−4. A lot of icy material could be delivered to inner exoplanets b and d in the Proxima Centauri system.
Delivery of water and volatiles to planets in the habitable zone in the Proxima Centauri system
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 2021, Vol. 53, No. 3 e-id 2021n3i1126. https://baas.aas.org/pub/2021n3i1126/release/2 , 5 страниц, 2021
For the Proxima Centauri planetary system, most of planetesimals from the vicinity of the exoplanet “c” with a semi-major axis ac of about 1.5 AU were ejected into hyperbolic orbits in 10 Myr. Some planetesimals could collide with this exoplanet after 20 Myr. Only one of several hundreds of planetesimals from the vicinity of this exoplanet reached the orbit of the exoplanet “b” with a semi-major axis ab=0.0485 AU or the orbit of the exoplanet “d” with a semi-major axis ad=0.029 AU, but the probability of a collision of such planetesimal (that reached the orbits) with the exoplanets b and d can reach 1, and the collision probability averaged over all planetesimals from the vicinity of the exoplanet “c” was ~10-3. If averaged over all considered planetesimals from the vicinity of exoplanet “c”, the probability of a collision of a planetesimal with the exoplanet “b” or “d” is greater than the probability of a collision with the Earth of a planetesimal from the zone of the giant planets in the Solar System (which is less than 10-5 per one planetesimal). A lot of icy material could be delivered to the exoplanets “b” and “d”.
Exocomets in the Proxima Centauri system and their importance for water transport
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
The scenario and efficiency of water transport by icy asteroids and comets are still amongst the most important unresolved questions of planetary systems. A better understanding of cometary dynamics in extrasolar systems shall provide information about cometary reservoirs and give an insight into water transport especially to planets in the habitable zone. The detection of Proxima Centauri-b (PCb), which moves in the habitable zone of this system, triggered a debate whether or not this planet can be habitable. In this work, we focus on the stability of an additional planet in the system and on water transport by minor bodies. We perform numerous N-body simulations with PCb and an outer Oort-cloud like reservoir of comets. We investigate close encounters and collisions with the planet, which are important for the transport of water. Observers found hints for a second planet with a period longer than 60 days. Our dynamical studies show that two planets in this system are stable even for a more massive second planet (∼ 12 Earth masses). Furthermore, we perform simulations including exocomets, a second planet, and the influence of the binary Alpha Centauri. The studies on the dynamics of exocomets reveal that the outer limit for water transport is around 200 au. In addition we show that water transport would be possible from a close-in planetesimal cloud (1-4 au). From our simulations, based on typical M-star protoplanetary disks, we estimate the water mass delivered to the planets up to 51 Earth oceans.
Motion of Planetesimals in the Hill Sphere of the Star Proxima Centauri
System Research, 2023, v. 57, N 6. P. 612-628. , 2023
The motion of planetesimals initially located in the feeding zone of the planet Proxima Centauri c, at distances of 500 AU from the star to the star's Hill sphere radius of 1200 AU was considered. In the analyzed non-gaseous model, the primary ejection of planetesimals from most of the feeding zone of an almost formed planet c to distances greater than 500 AU from the star occurred during the first 10 million years. Only for planetesimals originally located at the edges of the planet's feeding zone, the fraction of planetesimals that first reached 500 AU over the time greater than 10 million years was more than half. Some planetesimals could reach the outer part of the star's Hill sphere over hundreds of millions of years. Approximately 90% of the planetesimals that first reached 500 AU from Proxima Centauri first reached 1200 AU from the star in less than 1 million years, given the current mass of the planet c. No more than 2% of planetesimals with aphelion orbital distances between 500 and 1200 AU followed such orbits for more than 10 million years (but less than a few tens of millions of years). With a planet mass equal to half the mass of the planet c, approximately 70-80% of planetesimals increased their maximum distances from the star from 500 to 1200 AU in less than 1 million years. For planetesimals that first reached 500 AU from the star under the current mass of the planet c, the fraction of planetesimals with orbital eccentricities greater than 1 was 0.05 and 0.1 for the initial eccentricities of their orbits e o = 0.02 and e o = 0.15, respectively. Among the planetesimals that first reached 1200 AU from the star, this fraction was approximately 0.3 for both e o values. The minimum eccentricity values for planetesimals that have reached 500 and 1200 AU from the star were 0.992 and 0.995, respectively. In the considered model, the disk of planetesimals in the outer part of the star's Hill sphere was rather flat. Inclinations i of the orbits for more than 80% of the planetesimals that first reached 500 or 1200 AU from the star did not exceed 10°. With the current mass of the planet c, the percentage of such planetesimals with i > 20°d id not exceed 1% in all calculation variants. The results may be of interest for understanding the motion of bodies in other exoplanetary systems, especially those with a single dominant planet. They can be used to provide the initial data for models of the evolution of the disk of bodies in the outer part of Proxima Centauri's Hill sphere, which take into account gravitational interactions and collisions between bodies, as well as the influence of other stars. The strongly inclined orbits of bodies in the outer part of Proxima Centauri's Hill sphere can primarily result from bodies that entered the Hill sphere from outside. The radius of Proxima Centauri's Hill sphere is an order of magnitude smaller than the radius of the outer boundary of the Hills cloud in the Solar System and two orders of magnitude smaller than the radius of the Sun's Hill sphere. Therefore, it is difficult to expect the existence of a similarly massive cloud around this star as the Oort cloud around the Sun.
A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
Nature, 2016
At a distance of 1.295 parsecs, 1 the red-dwarf Proxima Centauri (α Centauri C, GL 551, HIP 70890, or simply Proxima) is the Sun's closest stellar neighbour and one of the best studied low-mass stars. It has an effective temperature of only ∼ 3050 K, a luminosity of ∼0.1 per cent solar, a measured radius of 0.14 R ⊙ 2 and a mass of about 12 per cent the mass of the Sun. Although Proxima is considered a moderately active star, its rotation period is ∼ 83 days, 3 and its quiescent activity levels and X-ray luminosity 4 are comparable to the Sun's. New observations reveal the presence of a small planet orbiting Proxima with a minimum mass of 1.3 Earth masses and an orbital period of ∼11.2 days. Its orbital semi-major axis is ∼ 0.05 AU, with an equilibrium temperature in the range where water could be liquid on its surface. 5 The results presented here consist of the analysis of previously obtained Doppler measurements (pre-2016 data), and the confirmation of a signal in a specifically designed follow-up campaign in 2016. The Doppler data comes from two precision radial velocity instruments, both at the European Southern Observatory (ESO): the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) and the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES). HARPS is a high-resolution stabilized echelle spectrometer installed at the ESO 3.6m telescope (La Silla observatory, Chile), and is calibrated in wavelength using hollow cathode lamps. HARPS has demonstrated radial velocity measurements at ∼1 ms −1 precision over timescales of years, 6 including on low-mass stars. 7 All HARPS spectra were extracted and calibrated with the standard ESO Data Reduction Software, and radial velocities were measured using a least-squares template matching technique. 7 HARPS data is separated into two datasets. The first set includes all data obtained before 2016 by several programmes (HARPS pre-2016). The second HARPS set comes from the more recent Pale Red Dot campaign (PRD hereafter), which was designed to eliminate period ambiguities using new HARPS observations and quasi-simultaneous photometry. The HARPS PRD observations consisted of obtaining one spectrum almost every night between Jan 19th and March 31st 2016. The UVES observations used the Iodine cell technique 8 and were obtained in the framework of the UVES survey for terrestrial planets around M-dwarfs between 2000 and 2008. The spectra were extracted using the standard procedures of the UVES survey, 9 and new radial velocities were re-obtained using up-to-date Iodine reduction codes. 10 Since systematic calibration errors produce correlations among observations within each night, 11 we consolidated Doppler measurements through nightly averages to present a simpler and more conservative signal search. This led to 72 UVES, 90 HARPS pre-2016 and 54 HARPS PRD epochs. The PRD photometric observations were obtained using the Astrograph for the South Hemisphere II telescope (ASH2 hereafter, 12 SII and H α narrowband filters) and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network (LCOGT.net, 13 Johnson B and V bands), over the same time interval and similar sampling as the HARPS PRD observations. Further details about each campaign and
Migration of celestial bodies in the solar system and in some exoplanetary systems
Solar System Research, 2024
A review of the results on the migration of celestial bodies in the Solar System and in some exoplanetary systems is presented. Some problems of planet accumulation and migration of planetesimals, small bodies and dust in the forming and present Solar System are considered. It has been noted that the outer layers of the Earth and Venus could have accumulated similar planetesimals from different areas of the feeding zone of the terrestrial planets. In addition to the theory of coaccretion and the mega-impact and multi-impact models, the formation of the embryos of the Earth and the Moon from a common rarefied condensation with subsequent growth of the main mass of the embryo of the Moon near the Earth is also discussed. Along with the Nice model and the “grand tack” model, a model is considered in which the embryos of Uranus and Neptune increased the semimajor axes of their orbits from values of no more than 10 AU to present values only due to gravitational interactions with planetesimals (without the motions of Jupiter and Saturn entering into resonance). The influence of changes in the semimajor axis of Jupiter’s orbit on the formation of the asteroid belt is discussed, as well as the influence of planetesimals from the feeding zone of the giant planets on the formation of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. The migration of bodies to the terrestrial planets from different distances from the Sun is considered. It is noted that bodies from the feeding zone of the giant planets and from the outer asteroid belt could deliver to the Earth a quantity of water comparable to the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans. The migration of bodies ejected from the Earth is considered. It is noted that about 20% of the ejected bodies that left the Earth’s sphere of influence eventually fell back to the Earth. The probabilities of collisions of dust particles with the Earth are usually an order of magnitude greater than the probabilities of collisions of their parent bodies with the Earth. The migration of planetesimals is considered in exoplanetary systems Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1. The amount of water delivered to the inner planet Proxima Centauri b, may have been more than the amount delivered to the Earth. The outer layers of neighboring planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system may contain similar material if there were many planetesimals near their orbits during the late stages of planetary accumulation.
Proxima Centauri b is not a transiting exoplanet
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
We report Spitzer Space Telescope observations during predicted transits of the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. As the nearest terrestrial habitable-zone planet we will ever discover, any potential transit of Proxima b would place strong constraints on its radius, bulk density, and atmosphere. Subsequent transmission spectroscopy and secondary-eclipse measurements could then probe the atmospheric chemistry, physical processes, and orbit, including a search for biosignatures. However, our photometric results rule out planetary transits at the 200 ppm level at 4.5 mu\mumum, yielding a 3σ upper radius limit of 0.4 R⊕ (Earth radii). Previous claims of possible transits from optical ground- and space-based photometry were likely correlated noise in the data from Proxima Centauri’s frequent flaring. Our study indicates dramatically reduced stellar activity at near-to-mid infrared wavelengths, compared to the optical. Proxima b is an ideal target for space-based infrared telescopes, if their i...