Impact-induced differentiation in icy bodies

Abstract

By the time icy objects grow to about the mass of Europa and silicate bodies grow to approximately lunar mass, a large high-speed impact can generate an intact melt region that allows the dense material to gravitationally segregate, forming a large density anomaly. If this anomaly generates sufficient differential stress, it rapidly segregates to the object's center, triggering whole body differentiation. We used an impact melting model based on the Hugoniot equations, the linear shock-particle velocity relationship, and the empirical relationship between shock pressure and distance coupled with a Monte Carlo simulation of the late accretion process to determine conditions under which large impacts trigger differentiation in icy bodies. In a gas-free environment, impacts of projectiles in the satellite's accretion zone have a small probability of triggering differentiation in surviving proto-satellites as small as Triton. The probability increases to 100% by the time surviving proto-satellites grow to the mass of Europa. The impact of heliocentric particles captured by the central planet also effectively triggers differentiation in the icy satellites. If the largest projectiles in the heliocentric distribution are comparable to the mass of the growing satellites, they trigger differentiation in all surviving proto-satellites by the time they grow to the mass of Callisto. However, Callisto and Ganymede have different probabilities of impact-induced differentiation if they captured a small fraction (0.01 and 0.5%) of the particles they accreted from a distribution of small (largest particles ~10% of the satellite's mass) heliocentric objects. Impact induced differentiation explains the apparent difference between these two objects in a plausible way.