On the origin of the asteroids

Abstract

Initial temperature distribution of the nebulous disk around the sun led to the bordering region between the asteriods and Jupiter becoming a transition region, in which the “icy” matter changed from uncondensed to condensed state. This continuity in chemical constitution makes the projected surface density of solid condensate in the inner portion of the Jupiter region greater than the mean value in the asteriod region, and the time taken for dust particles to precipitate to become comparable to that in the asteriod region. Owing to gravitational instability, the dust layer then broke up into clusters of particles, each cluster transforming into a planetesimal. The mass of such a planetesimal and the rate of its growth in the Jupiter region are greater than those in the asteriod region. Perturbations and mutual encounters between the larger planetesimals in the inner portion of the Jupiter region changed their orbits and produced rather large relative velocities. Some of these entered the asteriod region, drew out most of the matter there, and increased the random velocity of the asteriods that remained, so that they could not combine to form a planet. We prove the above view by a quantitative analysis in this paper.