Planet formation and evolution: observational and dynamical studies

这些行星是如何形成的？何时何地？在我们的太阳系外部区域还存在其他行星吗？有可能仍然存在吗？这些巨型行星的遥远卫星能告诉我们这些木星行星的形成过程吗？我们如何将对我们自己太阳系的研究知识与我们在研究其他恒星周围的圆盘和行星时收集的信息结合起来？我们太阳系的小体群体是如何形成和演化的？它们目前的大小分布是否告诉我们关于这些行星是如何形成的？NSERC的这笔拨款将支持一系列与这些问题相关的研究。气态巨行星中比氦重的元素过多的谜题将通过轨道动力学的大规模数值模拟来探索，以研究小型物体是如何被输送到不断增长的行星上的。这个话题是在巨行星形成的两种主要理论之间做出决定的为数不多的途径之一。为了解决遥远的外太阳系中是否存在更大的矮行星的问题，我建议在世界级的望远镜上用现代马赛克CCD相机对大片天空进行望远镜测量。这些测量将是第一次对100个天文单位以上的大型遥远行星进行大范围研究。撞击的年表和神秘的“月球大灾难”的性质将通过使用各种宇宙化学和航天器数据的动力学研究来解决。对这个问题的探索可能需要开发一个月球科学包来部署在月球上。

How did the planets form? When and where? Were there ever other planets in the outer regions of our Solar System, and is it possible that there still are?  What can the distant satellites of the giant planets tell us about the formation of these jovian planets?  How do we combine the knowledge of studies of our own Solar System with the information we are gathering in studying disks and planets around other stars?  How did the small-body populations of our Solar System form and evolve?  Does their current size distribution tell us anything about how 'planetesimals' and then planets formed?This NSERC grant will support a suite of research related to these questions. The puzzle of the overabundance of elements heavier than helium in the gas giant planets will be explored via large-scale numerical simulations of orbital dynamics to study how small objects are delivered to the growing plaents. This topic is one of the very few avenues to decide between the two main theories of giant planet formation.In order to address the issue of whether even larger dwarf planets are present in the distant outer Solar System, I propose to conduct telescopic surveys of huge areas of sky made possible by modern mosaic CCD cameras on world-class telescopes.  These surveys will be the first large-area studies to be sensitive to large distant planets beyond 100 astronomical units.The issue of the chronology of the impact bombardment and the nature of the mysterious ``lunar cataclysm'' will be approached via dynamical studies that use a wide variety of cosmochemical and spacecraft data.  The exploration of this question may necessitate the development of a lunar science package to be emplaced on the Moon.