The Solar System was rearranged earlier than thought
Studies of the only large binary asteroids close to Jupiter indicate early planetary upheaval
An unusual pair of asteroids appear to indicate an early planetary shake-up in our Solar System, according to an American planetary scientist. David Nesvorny, the lead scientist of a new study at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, has been looking closely at the binary asteroid Patroclus-Menoetius, which is made up of two rocks that orbit around each other as they circle the Sun.
Residing in a cluster of space rocks known as the Trojan asteroids – one of which orbits ahead of Jupiter and the other which orbits behind – Nesvorny says they were forced from their previous position in what became the Kuiper Belt. This, he adds, happened about 100 million years after the Solar System formed – much earlier than had been thought before, with Uranus and Neptune kicking the objects inward as they themselves were pushed outwards.
“The Trojans were likely captured during a dramatic period of dynamic instability when a skirmish between the Solar System’s giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — occurred,” Nesvorny explains. Since the binary asteroid survived intact as it became trapped around Jupiter, he says the planetary rearrangement of the Solar System could not have occurred hundreds of millions of years later as other models have shown because the binary would have broken up in collisions with other space rocks before it arrived within the group.