Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Astrophysics

Chaotic planet formation

Nature volume 402, pages 599–600 (1999)Cite this article

Our understanding of how planets formed around the Sun is far from complete, and is increasingly challenged by new discoveries of unusual planetary-mass companions around other stars. The idea that chaotic dynamics — or extreme sensitivity to initial conditions — plays a large role in the formation, evolution and survival of planetary systems has gained popularity in recent years. This is in contrast to earlier ideas that solar systems similar to our own are an inevitable by-product of the formation of Sun-like stars.

On page 635 of this issue, Thommes et al.1 propose that all of the giant planets in our Solar System formed in a narrow region of the disk-like solar nebula that surrounded the young Sun: they ended up in their present widely spaced orbits as a result of violent and chaotic scattering. Also, on page 633, Armitage and Hansen2 propose that the early formation of a Jupiter-mass planet in a nebular disk could ‘trigger’ the formation of other giant planets. Such protoplanets would also form in a narrow region, and would be expected to evolve chaotically into systems that might resemble some of the putative extrasolar planetary systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Thommes, E. W., Duncan, M. J. & Levison, H. F. Nature 402, 635–638 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Armitage, P. J. & Hansen, B. M. S. Nature 402, 633–635 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Hahn, J. & Malhotra, R. Astron. J. 117, 3041–3053 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Lissauer, J. J. Icarus 69, 249–265 (1987).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Boss, A. P. Astron. J. 503, 923–937 (1998).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Patterson, C. W. Icarus 70, 319–333 (1987).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Marcy, G. W. & Butler, R. P. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 36, 57–98 (1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/planetsearch/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, 77058, Texas, USA

    Renu Malhotra

Authors
  1. Renu Malhotra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Renu Malhotra.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Malhotra, R. Chaotic planet formation. Nature 402, 599–600 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/45123

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/45123

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing