Internal structure of massive terrestrial planets

By D. Valencia, R. O’Connell, Dimitar D. Sasselov Earth, Planetary Science, H. C. F. Astrophysics. 2005

452 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Planetary formation models predict the existence of massive terrestrial planets and experiments are now being designed that should succeed in discovering them and measuring their masses and radii. We calculate internal structures of planets with one to ten times the mass of the Earth (Super-Earths) to obtain scaling laws for total radius, mantle thickness, core size and average density as a function of mass. We explore different compositions and obtain a scaling law of R ∝ M 0.267 – 0.272 for Super-Earths. We also study a second family of planets, Super-Mercuries with masses ranging from one mercury-mass to ten mercury-masses with similar composition to the Earth's but with a larger core mass fraction. We explore the effect of surface temperature and core mass fraction on the scaling laws for these planets. The scaling law obtained for the Super-Mercuries is R ∝ M ∼ 0.3 .

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8faa3376bba898b136b8a72af978d0447a92cc43

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Geophysics

Citations in the corpus

THE ATMOSPHERIC SIGNATURES OF SUPER-EARTHS: HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN HYDROGEN-RICH AND HYDROGEN-POOR ATMOSPHERES (2008, background): “…to rocky planets in our Solar System, super-Earths are predicted to have large surface gravities, - upwards of 25 m/s2 for a 5 Mearth planet - (Valencia et al. 2006, 2007; Fortney et al. 2007; Seager et al. 2007; Sotin et al. 2007) and some super-Earths may therefore be able to retain massive…”
MASS–RADIUS RELATION FOR ROCKY PLANETS BASED ON PREM (2015, background): “7] (3) For comparison, this semi-empirical mass-radius formula is in agreement with the mass- radius relation of super-Earths presented in Valencia et al. (2006), which is a scaling law of R ∝ M0.”
PLANET OCCURRENCE WITHIN 0.25 AU OF SOLAR-TYPE STARS FROM KEPLER (2011, background): “Placing these wellmeasured planets on theoretical mass–radius relationships (e.g., Valencia et al. 2006; Seager et al. 2007; Sotin et al. 2007; Baraffe et al. 2008; Grasset et al. 2009) provides insight into the range of compositions encompassed by the detected planets.”
SUPER-EARTH ATMOSPHERES: SELF-CONSISTENT GAS ACCRETION AND RETENTION (2015, result): “…M1/4c rather than the constant-density relation Rc ∝ M1/3c for the rocky core, in order to take into account the slight gravitational compression (see, e.g., Valencia et al. 2006), although both mass-radius relations yield a similar result due to the weak dependence on the core’s radius f ∝ R1/4c .”
ARCHITECTURE OF KEPLER'S MULTI-TRANSITING SYSTEMS. II. NEW INVESTIGATIONS WITH TWICE AS MANY CANDIDATES (2012, background): “Therefore all these planets may have a terrestrial structure, for which α ' 3.7 (Valencia et al. 2006).”
CHARACTERIZING K2 PLANET DISCOVERIES: A SUPER-EARTH TRANSITING THE BRIGHT K DWARF HIP 116454 (2014, background): “This is particularly desirable for planets with masses intermediate to those of the Earth and Uranus, commonly referred to as super–Earths, because no such planet exists in our Solar System (Valencia et al. 2006).”
FORMATION AND STRUCTURE OF LOW-DENSITY EXO-NEPTUNES (2011, background): “3R⊕ can be estimated from the mass-radius relationship for rocky (Earth-like composition) planets (e.g., Valencia et al. 2006; Seager et al. 2007; Fortney et al. 2007; Marcus et al. 2010).”
Geological consequences of super‐sized Earths (2007, background): “Simulations have shown that for a wide range of solarsystem configurations, the formation of planets with masses between 1–10 Me, and a high water content - waterworlds is expected to be quite common [Franck et al., 2003; Ida and Lin, 2005; Valencia et al., 2006; Leger et al., 2004].”
GEODYNAMICS AND RATE OF VOLCANISM ON MASSIVE EARTH-LIKE PLANETS (2008, background): “The crust is thin, so the top of the mantle is ≈ the planet’s radius, R. Valencia et al. (2006) propose the scaling R/R⊕ = (M/M⊕)'0.27.”
Is Proxima Centauri b Habitable? A Study of Atmospheric Loss (2017, unknown): “7 (e.g. Valencia et al. 2006).”
Characterization of exoplanets from their formation - II. The planetary mass-radius relationship (2012, methodology): “From theoretical calculations, one expects for scaled versions of the Earth in the 1-10 M⊕ regime β ≈ 0.27 (Valencia et al. 2006) while for massive gaseous planets of about 10 MX, β ≈ −1/8 (Chabrier et al. 2009), as expected from polytropic models.”
THREE POSSIBLE ORIGINS FOR THE GAS LAYER ON GJ 1214b (2009, methodology): “This is the common general approach for modeling planet interiors (e.g. Valencia et al. 2006; Fortney et al. 2007; Adams et al. 2008; Zeng & Seager 2008; Baraffe et al. 2008; Figueira et al. 2009; Grasset et al. 2009).”
The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets. XI. Super-Earths (5 and 8 M{⊕}) in a 3-planet system (2007, background): “With a planetary radius of ∼1.5 R⊕ (Valencia et al. 2006) and a temperature that would be +20◦ C for a 0.5 albedo, Gl 581c is probably the most Earth-like of all known exoplanets.”
Ocean Planet or Thick Atmosphere: On the Mass-Radius Relationship for Solid Exoplanets with Massive Atmospheres (2007, background): “Most authors have assumed that solid planets in the 5 to 10 M⊕ range have an insignificant amount of hydrogen (Valencia et al. 2006a,b; Fortney et al. 2007; Seager et al. 2007; Selsis et al. 2007; Sotin et al. 2007).”
Thermodynamics of mantle minerals - II. Phase equilibria (2011, background): “For example, thermodynamic equilibrium has proved to be a powerful means by which to understand mantle structure, the influence of phase transformations on dynamics, and the structure of exo-planets (Ringwood 1991; Christensen 1995; Valencia et al. 2006).”