Co-accretion + Giant Impact Origin of the Uranus System: Post-impact Evolution

Abstract

Abstract We investigate aspects of the co-accretion + giant impact scenario proposed by Morbidelli et al. (2012) for the origin of the Uranian satellites. In this model, a regular satellite system formed during gas accretion is impulsively destabilized by a Uranus-tipping impact, producing debris that ultimately re-orients to the planet’s new equatorial plane and re-accumulates into Uranus’ current large moons. We first investigate the nodal randomization of a disk of debris resulting from disruptive collisions between the hypothesized prior satellites. Consistent with Morbidelli et al., we find that an impact-generated interior c-disk with mass ≥10−2 Uranus masses is needed to cause sufficient nodal randomization to appropriately realign the outer debris disk. We then simulate the reaccumulation of the outer debris disk into satellites and find that disks with larger initial radii are needed to produce an outer debris disk that extends to Oberon’s distance, and that Uranus’ obliquity prior to the giant impact must have been substantial, ≥40°, if its original co-accreted satellite system was broadly similar in radial scale to those at Jupiter and Saturn today. Finally, we explore the subsequent evolution of a massive, water-dominated inner c-disk as it condenses, collisionally spreads, and spawns new moons beyond the Roche limit. We find that intense tidal dissipation in Uranus (i.e., ( Q / k 2 ) U ≤ 10 2 ) is needed to prevent large icy moons spawned from the inner disk from expanding beyond the synchronous orbit, where they would be long lived and inconsistent with the lack of massive inner moons at Uranus today. We conclude that while a co-accretion + giant impact is viable it requires rather specific conditions.