Early scattering by Jupiter and its collision effects in the terrestrial zone

Abstract

When Jupiter was on the order of three to ten Earth masses in size, there undoubtedly was a considerably larger mass of condensed matter in its zone, since Jupiter would have perturbed most of it to other parts of the solar system. Monte Carlo studies indicate a significant portion would have crossed the Earth's orbit. If the Earth and Moon had not yet fully formed, the probability of Earth-zone planetesimals being hit by this Jupiter-scattered material was high. Further Monte Carlo models of these collisions and their products indicate a significant portion of matter was heated to melting, even if less than 5% of the relative kinetic energy went into heat. The models include capture probabilities by an embryo Earth and a protolunar swarm. Because heat energy is correlated with comminution energy, and because the capture probability of the swarm is mass-dependent while the embryo's is not, the protolunar material suffered much higher heating on the average than did the proto-Earth material.