A Nice Pretty Picture: The Standard Model

Three major stages of planet formation: (works for Earth)
  1. 1-10km objects form by two-body accretion, gravitational instability, or something else.

  2. Big guys grow faster than small guys run away.
    • ..............
    • And since .
    • As long as is not affected by big guys.


    • Assumed to end when either: (Lissauer 1993).
      • A big guy ate everything in its `feeding zone.'
      • Or, the feeding zones run into one another embryos are smaller.

  3. Big guys dynamically interact and grow via collisions. (Late-Stage)
    • Fernandez & Ip build Uranus and Neptune from Lunar/Earth-mass objects in < 2x107 years.
      • Used a Monte Carlo, Öpik code.
    • Brunini & Fernandez `confirm' these results with direct N-body calculations.
    So, problem solved! ................ Right?