English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

With N-body simulations of a planetary system with an asteroid belt weinvestigate how the asteroid impact rate on the Earth is affected by thearchitecture of the planetary system. We find that the $\nu_6$ secularresonance plays an important role in the asteroid collision rate with theEarth. Compared to exoplanetary systems, the solar system is somewhat specialin its lack of a super-Earth mass planet in the inner solar system. Wetherefore first consider the effects of the presence of a super-Earth in theterrestrial planet region. We find a significant effect for super-Earths with amass of around $10\,\rm M_\oplus$ and a separation greater than about $0.7\,\rmAU$. For a super-Earth that is interior to the Earth's orbit, the number ofasteroids colliding with Earth increases the closer the super-Earth is to theEarth's orbit. This is the result of multiple secular resonance locationscausing more asteroids to be perturbed onto Earth-crossing orbits. When thesuper-Earth is placed exterior to Earth's orbit, the collision rate decreasessubstantially because the $\nu_6$ resonance no longer exists in the asteroidbelt region. We also find that changing the semi-major axis of Saturn leads toa significant decrease in the asteroid collision rate, while increasing itsmass increases the collision rate. These results may have implications for thehabitability of exoplanetary systems.

Asteroid impacts on terrestrial planets: The effects of super-Earths and the role of the $\nu_6$ resonance