Journal
EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCE LETTERS
Volume 547, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116463
Keywords
Giant Impacts; core vaporisation; entropy; critical point; iron
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [681818 IMPACT]
- European Research Council (ERC) under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie program [750901 ABISSE]
- Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme [223272]
- TGCC supercomputers (Irene) through the PRACE grant [RA4947]
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Giant impacts are disruptive events occurring in the early stages of planetary evolution. They may result in the formation of a protolunar disk or of a synestia. A central planet and one or several moons condense upon cooling bearing the chemical signature of the silicate mantles of the initial bodies; the iron cores may partly vaporize, fragment and/or merge. Here we determine from ab initio simulations the critical point of iron in the temperature range of 9000-9350 K, and the density range of 1.85-2.40 g/cm(3), corresponding to a pressure range of 4-7 kbars. This implies that the iron core of the proto-Earth may become supercritical after giant impacts and during the condensation and cooling of the protolunar disk. We show that the iron core of Theia partially vaporized during the Giant Impact. Part of this vapor may have remained in the disk, to eventually participate in the Moon's small core. Similarly, during the late veneer a large fraction of the planetesimals have their cores undergoing partial vaporization. This would help mixing the highly siderophile elements into magma ponds or oceans. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.
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