2024/04/16 by André Izidoro, Rogerio Deienno, Izidoro, Andre +5 · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Planetary Science and Exploration
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2404.10828
openalex publication_date 2024/04/16 · openalex created_date 2024/04/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
The asteroid Athor, residing today in the inner main asteroid belt, has been recently associated as the source of EL enstatite meteorites to Earth. It has been argued that Athor formed in the terrestrial region -- as indicated by similarity in isotopic compositions between Earth and EL meteorites -- and was implanted in the belt \gtrsim60 Myr after the formation of the solar system. A recently published study modelling Athor's implantation in the belt (Avdellidou et al 2024) further concluded, using an idealized set of numerical simulations, that Athor cannot have been scattered from the terrestrial region and implanted at its current location unless the giant planet dynamical instability occurred \em after Athor's implantation (\gtrsim60~Myr). In this work, we revisit this problem with a comprehensive suite of dynamical simulations of the implantation of asteroids into the belt during the terrestrial planet accretion. We find that Athor-like objects can in fact be implanted into the belt long after the giant planets' dynamical instability. The probability of implanting Athor analogs when the instability occurs at \lesssim15~Myr is at most a factor of ∼2 lower than that of an instability occurring at ∼100~Myr after the solar system formation. Moreover, Athor's implantation can occur up to \gtrsim100 Myr after the giant planet instability. We conclude that Athor's link to EL meteorites does not constrain the timing of the solar system's dynamical instability.