Comment on "Did the terrestrial planets of the Solar System form by pebble accretion?"

Abstract

Morbidelli, Kleine & Nimmo (2024) (MKN) recently published a critical analysis on whether the terrestrial planets in the Solar System formed by rapid pebble accretion or by the classical route of multiple giant impacts between planetary embryos after the dissipation of the protoplanetary disc. They arrive at the conclusion that the terrestrial planets did not form by pebble accretion. Although we welcome debate on this topic, we want to emphasize here several points that we disagree on. We will not address in detail every claim made in MKN, but rather stick to four main points. Our conclusion is that pebble accretion remains a viable mechanism to drive significant growth of protoplanets in the protoplanetary disc, with as much as 70% of Earth formed by pebble accretion. This rapid growth phase must nevertheless have been followed by an extended period of collisional growth after the end of the protoplanetary disc phase, likely culminating with the moon-forming giant impact. We emphasize here an important recent result from Olson & Sharp (2023), namely that significant growth by pebble accretion can be reconciled with the Hf-W decay system even for a canonical moon-forming giant impact with a Mars-mass protoplanet and a low equilibration efficiency - a more massive impactor, as proposed in Johansen et al. (2023), is not necessary. Given that terrestrial planet formation naturally involves both pebble accretion and a combination of small and large impactors, this challenges the very notion of making an either/or distinction between the classical collision model and the pebble accretion model.