The Last Stages of Terrestrial Planet Formation: Dynamical Friction and the Late Veneer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a small residual planetesimal population can simultaneously damp terrestrial planet eccentricities and account for the late veneer delivery of highly siderophile elements, aligning with geochemical and dynamical evidence.

Contribution

It shows that a residual planetesimal population of about 0.01 Earth masses, mainly small planetesimals under 10 meters, can explain both dynamical damping and geochemical late veneer data.

Findings

Residual planetesimals can damp planetary eccentricities effectively.

Small planetesimals (<10m) are necessary for efficient velocity damping.

Accretion ratios match observed HSE abundances for Earth, Moon, and Mars.

Abstract

The final stage of terrestrial planet formation consists of the cleanup of residual planetesimals after the giant impact phase. Dynamically, a residual planetesimal population is needed to damp the high eccentricities of the terrestrial planets after the giant impact stage. Geochemically, highly siderophile element (HSE) abundance patterns inferred for the terrestrial planets and the Moon suggest that a total of about 0.01 M_Earth of chondritic material was delivered as `late veneer' by planetesimals to the terrestrial planets after the end of giant impacts. Here we combine these two independent lines of evidence for a leftover population of planetesimals and show that: 1) A residual planetesimal population containing 0.01 M_Earth is able to damp the eccentricities of the terrestrial planets after giant impacts to their observed values. 2) At the same time, this planetesimal population can account for the observed relative amounts of late veneer added to the Earth, Moon and Mars provided that the majority of the late veneer was delivered by small planetesimals with radii <10m. These small planetesimal sizes are required to ensure efficient damping of the planetesimal's velocity dispersion by mutual collisions, which in turn ensures that the planets' accretion cross sections are significantly enhanced by gravitational focusing above their geometric values. Specifically we find, in the limit that the relative velocity between the terrestrial planets and the planetesimals is significantly less than the terrestrial planets' escape velocities, that gravitational focusing yields an accretion ratio Earth/Mars~17, which agrees well with the accretion ratio inferred from HSEs of 12-23. For the Earth-Moon system, we find an accretion ratio of ~200, which is consistent with estimates of 150-700 derived from HSE abundances that include the lunar crust as well as mantle component. (Abridged)