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在我们的太阳系中有一个“大分水岭”,我们可能最终知道它是如何形成的

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2020年01月25日

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There's a 'Great Divide' in Our Solar System, And We Might Finally Know How It Formed

在我们的太阳系中有一个“大分水岭”,我们可能最终知道它是如何形成的

Shortly after the Solar System formed, astronomers think it went through what's known as the Great Divide – a splitting up of the planets into two distinct groups. We weren't around to experience this cosmic schism, but a new study has put forward an intriguing hypothesis on how it would have occurred.

太阳系形成后不久,天文学家认为它经历了所谓的“大分水岭”——行星分裂成两个不同的组。我们并没有经历这种宇宙分裂,但一项新的研究提出了一个有趣的假设,它是如何发生的。

Put simply, the Great Divide left our Solar System with the smaller terrestrial planets closest to the Sun (including Earth and Mars), and the larger gas giant - or 'Jovian' - planets farther out (including Jupiter and Saturn).

简而言之,大分水岭让我们的太阳系只剩下了离太阳最近的较小的类地行星(包括地球和火星)和离太阳更远的较大的气态巨行星(或称“木星”)(包括木星和土星)。

Not only do these two groups of planets differ in size, they're different in their make-up: terrestrial planets are largely composed of rock and lacking in organic carbon compounds, whereas the Jovian planets are largely made up of gas, and rich in organics.

这两类行星不仅大小不同,它们的构成也不同:类地行星主要由岩石构成,缺乏有机碳化合物;而木星行星主要由气体构成,富含有机物。

在我们的太阳系中有一个“大分水岭”,我们可能最终知道它是如何形成的

The question is: how do you create this compositional dichotomy? says planetary scientist Ramon Brasser from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan.

日本东京理工学院的行星科学家Ramon Brasser说:“问题是:你如何创造这种成分二分法?”

How do you ensure that material from the inner and outer Solar System didn't mix from very early on in its history?

“你如何确保太阳系内外的物质在它的早期历史中没有混合?”

Up until now, we've been pinning the blame on the gravitational effects of Jupiter. According to this idea, the pull of the massive planet was enough to create a kind of invisible barrier between the inner and outer planets.

到目前为止,我们一直将其归咎于木星的引力效应。根据这个想法,大质量行星的引力足以在内外行星之间形成一种无形的屏障。

But Brasser and colleagues think this may not be the case. Their calculations point to a ring-like structure forming around the early Sun, creating a disk that acted as a physical barrier between two types of planet-forming materials.

但是Brasser和他的同事们认为事实并非如此。他们的计算指出,在早期的太阳周围形成了一个环状结构,形成了一个圆盘,充当了两种行星形成材料之间的物理屏障。

The most likely explanation for that compositional difference is that it emerged from an intrinsic structure of this disk of gas and dust, says geological scientist Stephen Mojzsis, from the University of Colorado Boulder.

来自科罗拉多大学博尔德分校的地质学家Stephen Mojzsis说:“对于这种成分上的差异,最有可能的解释是它来自于这个由气体和尘埃组成的圆盘的内在结构。”

在我们的太阳系中有一个“大分水岭”,我们可能最终知道它是如何形成的

Computer simulations run by the researchers showed that Jupiter wouldn't have been big enough in the early Solar System to block the flow of rocky material towards the Sun. If Jupiter didn't cause the schism, the team had to look for an alternative explanation.

研究人员进行的计算机模拟显示,在早期的太阳系中,木星的体积还不足以阻挡岩石物质向太阳的流动。如果不是木星造成的分裂,研究小组不得不寻找另一种解释。

They found it in data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, which showed disks of gas and dust around fledgling stars. If such a ring had originally formed around our own star, it might have separated gas and dust into separate pockets of high and low pressure.

他们在智利的阿塔卡马大型毫米/亚毫米阵列(ALMA)的数据中发现了这一现象。如果这样一个环最初是在我们自己的恒星周围形成的,它可能会把气体和尘埃分离到不同的高气压和低压区。

The researchers describe it as a "pressure bump", capable of sorting material into two distinct buckets in the early days of the Solar System. In fact, there may have been several rings responsible for creating the divide in planet types.

研究人员将其描述为一个“压力冲击”,能够在太阳系早期将物质分成两部分。事实上,可能有几个光环造成了行星类型的差异。

How materials were sorted in the early Solar System is also important knowledge for understanding the emergence of life on Earth.

在太阳系早期,物质是如何被分类的,这对于理解地球上生命的出现也很重要。

Unlike the other terrestrial planets, ours bucks the trend by containing organic materials, suggesting those dividing disks wouldn't necessarily have been completely uncrossable – and fugitive carbon-rich materials may have scattered across the divide to trigger life on Earth.

与其他类地行星不同的是,我们的类地行星通过包含有机物质来逆潮流而动,这表明那些分开的圆盘并不一定是完全不可交叉的——易流失的富含碳的物质可能散布在分水岭上,触发了地球上的生命。

This is yet another example of how studying growing star systems elsewhere in the cosmos can tell us more about how our own Solar System came into being, and about the first hints of life in our solar neighbourhood, too.

这是另一个研究宇宙中其他地方不断成长的恒星系统的例子,它可以告诉我们更多关于我们自己的太阳系是如何形成的,以及关于我们的太阳邻居最初的生命迹象。

The research is published in Nature Astronomy.

这项研究发表在《自然天文学》杂志上。


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