Planet formation and evolution in our Solar System and beyond

The discovery of thousands of exoplanets in recent decades has revealed a remarkable diversity of planetary system architectures, including entire classes of planets for which there is no solar system analog. In particular, the Kepler mission has shown that planets intermediate in size between Earth and Neptune with orbital periods less than 100 days are abundant in our galaxy. Concurrently, spacecraft missions to small primitive bodies in our solar system have yielded valuable insights into conditions in the early solar system. This thesis addresses questions in planet formation theory arising from both sets of observations. We begin with an investigation into the observed diversity of super-Earth bulk densities, which range from being consistent with a terrestrial composition to requiring an extended hydrogen-helium (H/He) envelope comprising several percent of the planet's mass. Giant impacts are expected to play a role in the formation of these worlds.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Biersteker, John Brooks.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Benjamin P. Weiss and Hilke E. Schlichting.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123730

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123730