Solar system formation in two steps - Space Daily

An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford, LMU Munich, ETH Zurich, BGI Bayreuth, and the University of Zurich discovered that a two-step formation process of the early Solar System can explain the chronology and split in volatile and isotope content of the inner and outer Solar System.

The paper presents a new theoretical framework for the formation and structure of the Solar System that can explain several key features of the terrestrial planets (like Earth, Venus, and Mars), outer Solar System (like Jupiter), and composition of asteroids and meteorite families.

The suggested combination of astrophysical and geophysical phenomena during the earliest formation phase of the Sun and the Solar System itself can explain why the inner Solar System planets are small and dry with little water by mass, while the outer Solar System planets are larger and wet with lots of water.

The numerical experiments performed by the interdisciplinary team showed that the relative chronologies of early onset and protracted finish of accretion in the inner Solar System, and a later onset and more rapid accretion of the outer Solar System planets can be explained by two distinct formation epochs of planetesimals, the building blocks of the planets.

Under such conditions the interactions between the dust grains embedded in the disk gas and water around the orbital location where it transitions from gas to ice phase (the snow line) can trigger an early formation burst of planetesimals in the inner Solar System and another one later and further out.

In comparison, outer Solar System planetesimals formed later and therefore experienced substantially less internal heating and therefore limited iron core formation, and volatile release

'The early-formed and dry inner Solar System and the later-formed and wet outer Solar System were therefore set on two different evolutionary paths very early on in their history