Concept
Formation and evolution of the Solar System
Related concepts (69)
New Frontiers program
The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA with the purpose of furthering the understanding of the Solar System. The program selects medium-class missions which can provide high science returns. NASA is encouraging both domestic and international scientists to submit mission proposals for the program. New Frontiers was built on the innovative approach used by the Discovery and Explorer Programs of principal investigator-led missions.
Perturbation (astronomy)
In astronomy, perturbation is the complex motion of a massive body subjected to forces other than the gravitational attraction of a single other massive body. The other forces can include a third (fourth, fifth, etc.) body, resistance, as from an atmosphere, and the off-center attraction of an oblate or otherwise misshapen body. The study of perturbations began with the first attempts to predict planetary motions in the sky. In ancient times the causes were unknown.
Deimos (moon)
Deimos ˈdaɪməs (systematic designation: Mars II) is the smaller and outermost of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos. Deimos has a mean radius of and takes 30.3 hours to orbit Mars. Deimos is from Mars, much farther than Mars' other moon, Phobos. It is named after Deimos, the Ancient Greek god and personification of dread and terror. Moons of Mars#Discovery Deimos was discovered by Asaph Hall III at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on 12 August 1877, at about 07:48 UTC.
Chondrite
A chondrite 'kQndrait is a stony (non-metallic) meteorite that has not been modified, by either melting or differentiation of the parent body. They are formed when various types of dust and small grains in the early Solar System accreted to form primitive asteroids. Some such bodies that are captured in the planet's gravity well become the most common type of meteorite by (whether quickly, or after many orbits) arriving on a trajectory toward the planet's surface. Estimates for their contribution to the total meteorite population vary between 85.
Circumstellar disc
A circumstellar disc (or circumstellar disk) is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accretion disk of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids, or collision fragments in orbit around a star. Around the youngest stars, they are the reservoirs of material out of which planets may form. Around mature stars, they indicate that planetesimal formation has taken place, and around white dwarfs, they indicate that planetary material survived the whole of stellar evolution. Such a disc can manifest itself in various ways.
Nice model
The Nice (ˈniːs) model is a scenario for the dynamical evolution of the Solar System. It is named for the location of the Côte d'Azur Observatory—where it was initially developed in 2005—in Nice, France. It proposes the migration of the giant planets from an initial compact configuration into their present positions, long after the dissipation of the initial protoplanetary disk. In this way, it differs from earlier models of the Solar System's formation.
Jupiter trojan
The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either , existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or , 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU.
Hadean
The Hadean (heɪˈdiːən,_ˈheɪdiən ) is the first and oldest of the four known geologic eons of Earth's history. It started with the planet's formation about 4.54 Bya, now defined as (4567.30 ± 0.16) Mya set by the age of the oldest solid material in the Solar System found in some meteorites about 4.567 billion years old. The proposed interplanetary collision that created the Moon occurred early in this eon, and the Late Heavy Bombardment is hypothesized to have occurred at the end of the eon.
Radiation pressure
Radiation pressure (also known as light pressure) is the mechanical pressure exerted upon any surface due to the exchange of momentum between the object and the electromagnetic field. This includes the momentum of light or electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength that is absorbed, reflected, or otherwise emitted (e.g. black-body radiation) by matter on any scale (from macroscopic objects to dust particles to gas molecules). The associated force is called the radiation pressure force, or sometimes just the force of light.
Discovery Program
The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level than missions from NASA's New Frontiers or Flagship Programs. As a result, Discovery missions tend to be more focused on a specific scientific goal rather than serving a general purpose. The Discovery Program was founded in 1990 to implement the policy of the then-NASA administrator Daniel S.