Vesta and Ceres: crossing the history of the Solar System

TL;DR

This paper reviews the formation and evolution of Vesta and Ceres within the context of the Solar System's history, aiming to interpret data from the Dawn mission and understand their early development phases.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the formation timescales and evolutionary processes of Vesta and Ceres across different Solar System phases, linking meteorite data with planetary history.

Findings

Vesta and Ceres are among the earliest bodies to form in the Solar System.

Their evolution was significantly influenced by the different phases of Solar System history.

The study offers a framework for interpreting Dawn mission data on these bodies.

Abstract

The evolution of the Solar System can be schematically divided into three different phases: the Solar Nebula, the Primordial Solar System and the Modern Solar System. These three periods were characterized by very different conditions, both from the point of view of the physical conditions and from that of the processes there were acting through them. Across the Solar Nebula phase, planetesimals and planetary embryos were forming and differentiating due to the decay of short-lived radionuclides. At the same time, giant planets formed their cores and accreted the nebular gas to reach their present masses. After the gas dispersal, the Primordial Solar System began its evolution. In the inner Solar System, planetary embryos formed the terrestrial planets and, in combination with the gravitational perturbations of the giant planets, depleted the residual population of planetesimals. In the outer Solar System, giant planets underwent a violent, chaotic phase of orbital rearrangement which caused the Late Heavy Bombardment. Then the rapid and fierce evolution of the young Solar System left place to the more regular secular evolution of the Modern Solar System. Vesta, through its connection with HED meteorites, and plausibly Ceres too were between the first bodies to form in the history of the Solar System. Here we discuss the timescale of their formation and evolution and how they would have been affected by their passage through the different phases of the history of the Solar System, in order to draw a reference framework to interpret the data that Dawn mission will supply on them.