Engineering topics

Ciesla, F. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Ciesla, F. J..

6 records

NASA NTRS2005

The Distribution of Water in a Viscous Protoplanetary Disk

The distribution of water in the solar nebula is important to understand for a number of reasons. Firstly, in the inner regions of the solar nebula, the concentration of water vapor is expected to have played a major role in determining its oxidation state, and therefore would control which minerals would form there. Secondly, in the outer nebula, water would be a major condensable, making up nearly 50% of the mass of the solids and thus possibly playing a role in determining where giant planets formed. Lastly, liquid water is important for forming and sustaining life, and therefore understanding where and how water was transported to the habitable zone of a a star is critical to understanding how common life may be in the galaxy. Because of its importance, the distribution of water in the solar nebula has been studied by a number of authors. The main transport mechanisms which would determine the distribution of water would be diffusion and gas drag migration. Water vapor and small solids would diffuse in the nebula, moving away from areas of high concentrations. Larger bodies, while also subject to diffusion, though to a lesser extent, would experience gas drag migration, causing them to move inwards with time. The bodies most affected by this transport mechanism would be on the order of 1 meter in size. As objects continued to grow larger, their inertia would also grow, making them nearly immobile to gas drag. While efforts have been made to understand how water would be distributed in a protoplanetary disk, none of the published models simultaneously consider the effects of nebular evolution, transport of material throughout the nebula, and the existence of solids of various sizes at a given location of the nebula. We are currently developing a model which allows for these effects and is consistent with models for the accretion of bodies in the solar nebula.

Ciesla, F. J.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Radial Migration of Phyllosilicates in the Solar Nebula

It has long been recognized that the high temperatures of the inner solar nebula (within approx. 3 AU) would not have allowed water to be incorporated into solids. However, the presence of water on the surface of Earth, as well as evidence for it on the surface of an early Mars imply that water was incorporated into solid bodies in this region. How this water was delivered to the solid bodies has yet to be identified. In this abstract we explore the possibility that hydrous minerals, such as phyllosilicates, formed somewhere in the asteroid belt region of the solar nebula or beyond, and then migrated inward where they would be accreted into larger bodies.

Ciesla, F. J.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Accretion and Heating of Particles by Supersonic Planetesimals

Recently, nebular shock waves have become one of the leading candidates for explaining the presence of chondrules in primitive meteorites. While shocks have been shown to be capable of explaining many of the features of chondrules, a major problem with the theory is that the source of the shocks remains unidentified. Among the suggested sources of the shocks are bow shocks created by supersonic planetesimals in the nebula. Recently, we studied the structure of the shocks that would form around such supersonic planetesimals. We found that particles that encountered the shocks at distances greater than 2 planetesimal radii from the planetesimal would cool too quickly to form the textures observed in chondrules. While the region of the shock far away from the planetesimal may not allow chondrules to form, the region closer in has not been studied in detail. In this work we consider the dynamical and thermal evolution of particles that encounter supersonic planetesimals in this region.

Ciesla, F. J.↗

NASA NTRS2004

The Collisions of Chondrules Behind Shock Waves

One of the reasons that the mechanism(s) responsible for the formation of chondrules has remained so elusive is that each proposed mechanism must be able to explain a large number of features observed in chondrules. Most models of chondrule formation focus on matching the expected thermal histories of chondrules: rapid heating followed by cooling during crystallization at rates between approx. 10-1000 K/hr [1], and references therein]. Thus far, only models for large shock waves in the solar nebula have quantitatively shown that the thermal evolution of millimeter-sized particles in the nebula can match these inferred thermal histories [2-4]. While this is a positive step for the shock wave model, further testing is needed to see if other properties of chondrules can be explained in the context of this model. One area of interest is understanding the collisional evolution of chondrules after they encounter a shock wave. These collisions could lead to sticking, destruction, or bouncing. Here we focus on understanding what conditions are needed for these different outcomes to occur and try to reconcile the seemingly contradictory conclusions reached by studies of compound chondrule formation and chondrule destruction by collisions behind a shock wave.

Ciesla, F. J.↗

NASA NTRS2004

History of Thermally Processed Solids in the Protoplanetary Disk: Reconciling Theoretical Models and Meteoritical Evidence

In this talk we assess theoretical models of the radial, temporal, and thermal evolution of nebula solids, and their ultimate accretion into planetesimals such as we see today, using meteorite evidence as a guide. Each class of chondrites contains a characteristic suite of chondrules and CAIs that may have formed over a period of several Myr during which planetesimals were accreting in the disk. Details of the various models for transient melting of chondrules and igneous CAIs will be left to others. However, high-temperature processes of different kinds evaporation, alteration, etc did affect these constituents and their environment over this time span. Here we describe evolutionary scenarios consistent with a large time gap between CAI and chondrule formation and the presence of distinctive suites of chondrules and CAIs in each chondrite class. Particle-gas dynamical processes transport particles of all relevant sizes (microns to many meters) within the nebula and affect their evolution in a variety of important ways. Turbulent radial diffusion spreads particles radially down their concentration gradients - as one example, it can prevent CAIs from being lost into the sun on several Myr timescales [1]. Vertical diffusion spreads the dense midplane particle layer, determining its volume density, which in turn affects the particle growth rate and even the dominant growth process [2-4]. Turbulent concentration selects aerodynamically sorted particles for orders-of-magnitude density enhancement, and is applicable to porous, fluffy particles of appropriate size as well as to solid chondrules [5]. Inward radial drift under gas drag brings a surprisingly large amount of material to regions where it evaporates; these evaporation fronts cause significant chemical modification of the nebula gas over a wide range of radii [6]. Radial transport by stellar winds can be important for small particles [7].

Cuzzi, J. N.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Shock Heating: Effects on Chondritic Material

At the 1994 Conference on Chondrules and the Protoplanetary Disk, shock waves were discussed as mechanisms that may have been responsible for forming chondrules, millimeter-sized igneous spheres which are significant components of chondritic meteorites, and references therein]. At the time, shock waves were appealing because they were thought to be brief, repetitive events that were quantitatively shown to be able to rapidly heat silicates to the appropriate temperatures for chondrule formation. Since that meeting, more detailed models for the thermal processing of material in shock waves have been developed. These models have tracked the thermal evolution of the silicates for longer periods of time and found that their cooling rates are also consistent with what has been inferred for chondrules. In addition to the thermal histories of these particles, shock waves may be able to explain a number of other features observed in primitive meteorites. Here, we review the recent work that has been done in studying the interaction of solids with shock waves in the solar nebula.

Desch, S. J.↗