arXiv subjects

Hidenori Genda

Publications and source records attributed to Hidenori Genda.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Formation of Ryugu's parent planetesimal beyond the CO$_{2}$ snow line from small pebbles: insights from thermal evolution modeling

Astronomical observations of planet-forming circumstellar disks indicate that planetesimals form from 0.1-mm- to 1-cm-sized dust aggregates, commonly called ``pebbles.'' When such pebbles accrete beyond the water snow line, the resulting icy planetesimals undergo water--rock differentiation and develop porous pebble-pile cores whose voids are saturated with liquid water. Circulation of this water enhances heat transport in the core, suppressing the temperature rise caused by the decay of radionuclides. In this study, we constrain the accretion age and constituent pebble size of Ryugu's parent planetesimal by modeling the thermal evolution of icy planetesimals and comparing the results with the precipitation ages and temperatures of aqueously formed minerals identified in samples returned from asteroid Ryugu. Our numerical results suggest that Ryugu's parent planetesimal accreted within 2.0 Myr of the formation of calcium--aluminum-rich inclusions. The inferred early accretion age supports the hypothesis that Ryugu's parent planetesimal formed earlier than most chondrule-bearing carbonaceous chondrite parent planetesimals, potentially explaining the absence of chondrules in Ryugu samples. We also found that the core of the parent planetesimal was composed of pebbles no larger than a few millimeters. Such small pebble sizes are consistent with theoretical predictions for planetesimals formed beyond the CO$_{2}$ snow line.

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arXiv2026

Atmospheric Collapse and Habitability on Tidally-Locked Exoplanets

The habitability of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs is a key topic in the search for extraterrestrial life. The climates of these planets differ significantly from the Earth's due to their likely tidal locking, resulting in a hotter dayside and a colder nightside caused by uneven stellar irradiation. On tidally-locked planets around the outer edge of the habitable zone (HZ), although the definition of the classical HZ requires thick CO2 atmosphere, CO2 can condense onto the surface, leading to the reduction of greenhouse effect. However, the dayside permanent stellar irradiation could maintain a surface liquid water area. The onset of atmospheric collapse and the persistence of surface liquid water are governed by global heat redistribution which is influenced by factors such as atmospheric mass, stellar irradiation, and greenhouse effects. In this study, we used a three-dimensional global climate model to investigate the impact of atmospheric collapse on the presence of dayside surface liquid water. Our results indicate that surface liquid water could counter-intuitively persist despite atmospheric collapse. This is because the loss of atmospheric CO2 weakens not only the greenhouse effect but also daynight heat transport, leading to less redistribution of the energy of dayside insolation to the nightside. While atmospheric collapse is typically seen as an obstacle to maintaining a habitable climate, our findings suggest that it could play a positive role in sustaining surface liquid water on tidally-locked planets. Our work provides new light into the relationship between atmospheric collapse and planetary habitability.

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arXiv2025

Impacts of Atmospheric Carbon Species and Stellar Type on Climates of Terrestrial Planets

The climates of terrestrial planets are largely determined by the composition of their atmospheres and spectral types of their host stars. Previous studies suggest a wide range of carbon species abundances (CO\textsubscript{2}, CO, and CH\textsubscript{4}) can result from variations in reducing fluxes and stellar spectral types which influence photochemistry. However, a systematic investigation of how varying carbon species, particularly CO, affect planetary climates across wide parameter spaces remains limited. Here, we employ a one-dimensional radiative-convective equilibrium model to examine the dependence of planetary climate on the abundances of carbon species and host star type. We find that CO, due to weak absorption of stellar radiation, induces only moderate changes in stratospheric temperature, while its effect on surface temperature is negligible. Under Earth-like $p_\mathrm{N_2}$ (where $p_\mathrm{i}$ is the partial pressure on the surface of species i), for cases with fixed $p_\mathrm{CO_2}$, increase in CO leads to surface cooling on planets orbiting Sun-like stars unless the sum of $p_\mathrm{CO_2}$ and $p_\mathrm{CH_4}$ exceeds $\sim$1 bar. Whereas it results in surface warming for planets around M-type stars. When the total pressure of carbon species is fixed, converting CO\textsubscript{2} or CH\textsubscript{4} into CO always induces cooling. These effects arise from a combination of CO Rayleigh scattering, pressure broadening of greenhouse gas absorption lines, and \textcolor{red}{varying water vapor levels}. We further discuss how CO- and CH\textsubscript{4}-driven cooling (warming) can trigger positive (negative) climate-photochemistry feedback, influencing atmospheric evolution. Additionally, we suggest CO-rich planets may be less susceptible to water loss and atmospheric oxidation due to lower stratospheric water vapor content.

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arXiv2025

Low rock mass fraction within trans-Neptunian objects inferred from the spin-orbit evolution of Orcus-Vanth and Salacia-Actaea

Satellites play a crucial role in understanding the formation and evolution of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). The spin--orbit evolution of satellite systems depends on their thermal histories, allowing us to constrain the rock mass fraction within TNOs based on their current spin--orbit states. In this study, we perform coupled thermal--orbital evolution calculations for two satellite systems around undifferentiated TNOs: Orcus--Vanth and Salacia--Actaea. Our results demonstrate that the current spin--orbit states of these systems are consistent with a rock mass fraction of approximately 20--30%. Additionally, we estimate the organic mass fraction within the TNOs and find that it is comparable to the rock mass fraction. These findings suggest that the chemical composition of TNOs closely resembles that of comets.

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arXiv2023

Large planets may not form fractionally large moons

One of the unique aspects of Earth is that it has a fractionally large Moon, which is thought to have formed from a Moon-forming disk generated by a giant impact. The Moon stabilizes the Earth's spin axis at least by several degrees and contributes to Earth's stable climate. Given that impacts are common during planet formation, exomoons, which are moons around planets in extrasolar systems, should be common as well, but no exomoon has been confirmed. Here we propose that an initially vapor-rich moon-forming disk is not capable of forming a large moon because growing moonlets, which are building blocks of a moon, experience strong gas drag and quickly fall toward the planet. Our impact simulations show that terrestrial and icy planets that are larger than $\sim 1.3-1.6 R_\oplus$ produce entirely vapor disks, which fail to form a large moon. This indicates that (1) our model supports the Moon-formation models that produce vapor-poor disks and (2) rocky and icy exoplanets whose radii are smaller than $\sim 1.6 R_\oplus$ are ideal candidates for hosting fractionally large exomoons.

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arXiv2023

Mixing model of Phobos' bulk elemental composition for the determination of its origin: Multivariate analysis of MMX/MEGANE data

The formation process of the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, is still debated with two main competing hypotheses: the capture of an asteroid or a giant impact onto Mars. In order to reveal their origin, the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to measure Phobos' elemental composition by a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer called MEGANE. This study provides a model of Phobos' bulk elemental composition, assuming the two formation hypotheses. Using the mixing model, we established a MEGANE data analysis flow to discriminate between the formation hypotheses by multivariate analysis. The mixing model expresses the composition of Phobos in 6 key lithophile elements that will be measured by MEGANE (Fe, Si, O, Ca, Mg, and Th) as a linear mixing of two mixing components: material from Mars and material from an asteroid as represented by primitive meteorite compositions. The inversion calculation includes consideration of MEGANE's measurement errors ($E_P$) and derives the mixing ratio for a given Phobos composition, based on which the formation hypotheses are judged. For at least 65\% of the modeled compositions, MEGANE measurements will determine the origin uniquely ($E_P$ = 30\%), and this increases from 74 to 87\% as $E_P$ decreases from 20 to 10\%. Although the discrimination performance depends on $E_P$, the current operation plan for MEGANE predicts an instrument performance for $E_P$ of 20--30\%, resulting in ~70\% discrimination between the original hypotheses. MEGANE observations can also enable the determination of the asteroid type of the captured body or the impactor. The addition of other measurements, such as MEGANE's measurements of the volatile element K, as well as observations by other MMX remote sensing instruments, will also contribute to the MMX mission's goal to constrain the origin of Phobos.

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arXiv2023

Exploring the recycling model of Phobos formation: rubble-pile satellites

Phobos is the target of the return sample mission Martian Moons eXploration by JAXA that will analyze in great details the physical and compositional properties of the satellite from orbit, from the surface and in terrestrial laboratories, giving clues about its formation. Some models propose that Phobos and Deimos were formed after a giant impact giving rise to an extended debris disk. Assuming that Phobos formed from a cascade of disruptions and re-accretions of several parent bodies in this disk, and that they are all characterized by a low material cohesion, Hesselbrock & Milton (2017) have showed that a recycling process may happen during the assembling of Phobos, by which Phobos' parents are destroyed into a Roche-interior ring and reaccreted several times. In the current paper we explore in details the recycling model, and pay particular attention to the characteristics of the disk using 1D models of disk/satellite interactions. In agreement with previous studies we confirm that, if Phobos' parents bodies are gravitational aggregates (rubble piles), then the recycling process does occur. However, Phobos should be accompanied today by a Roche-interior ring. Furthermore, the characteristics of the ring are not reconcilable with today`s observations of Mars' environment, which put stringent constraints on the existence of a ring around Mars. The recycling mechanism may or may not have occurred at the Roche limit for an old moon population, depending on their internal cohesion. However, the Phobos we see today cannot be the outcome of such a recycling process.

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arXiv2023

Early water delivery to terrestrial planet regions during the stages of Jupiter's formation and migration in the Grand Tack model

The formation and subsequent migration of gas giants could significantly affect the material mixing in the Solar System. In this study, we use N-body simulations to investigate how much water is transported into the region of the terrestrial planet formation during the growth and migration phases of Jupiter in the Grand Tack model. We found that Jupiter's growth was accompanied by significant mass transport, and that a substantial amount of water (about 10 times Earth's ocean mass for the initial planetesimal distribution based on the minimum-mass solar nebula) was transported into the terrestrial planet region. The total amount delivered increased further during Jupiter's migration phase (totaling about 10-40 times Earth's ocean mass), which was less dependent on simulation parameters. In addition, at these stages, terrestrial planets were not fully grown. Therefore, water supplied during these early stages could interact with metallic iron during the core formation of protoplanets and/or growing Earth. Since hydrogen in water molecules can dissolve into their cores, this could explain the density deficit observed in the current Earth core. Notably, Jupiter could play an important role as a ''barrier'' in explaining the dichotomy of the isotopic compositions between noncarbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) meteorites. This study's results show that Jupiter's growth necessitates some mixing of NC and CC materials.

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arXiv2022

Experimentally shock-induced melt veins in basalt: Improving the shock classification of eucrites

Basaltic rocks occur widely on the terrestrial planets and differentiated asteroids, including the asteroid 4 Vesta. We conducted a shock recovery experiment with decaying compressive pulses on a terrestrial basalt at Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan. The sample recorded a range of pressures, and shock physics modeling was conducted to add a pressure scale to the observed shock features. The shocked sample was examined by optical and electron microscopy, electron back-scattered diffractometry, and Raman spectroscopy. We found that localized melting occurs at a lower pressure (~10 GPa) than previously thought (>20 GPa). The shocked basalt near the epicenter represents shock degree C of a recently proposed classification scheme for basaltic eucrites and, as such, our results provide a pressure scale for the classification scheme. Finally, we estimated the total fraction of the basaltic eucrites classified as shock degree C to be ~15% by assuming the impact velocity distribution onto Vesta.

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arXiv2022

Challenges in forming Phobos and Deimos directly from a splitting of an ancestral single moon

The origin and evolution of Martian moons have been intensively debated in recent years. It is proposed that Phobos and Deimos may originate directly from a splitting of an ancestral moon orbiting at around the Martian synchronous orbit. At this hypothetical splitting, the apocenter of the inner moon (presumed as Phobos) and the pericenter of the outer moon (presumed as Deimos) are reported to coincide, in that, their semi-major axes reside inside and outside the Martian synchronous orbit with non-zero eccentricities, respectively. However, the successive orbital evolution of the two moons is not studied. Here, we perform direct $N$-body orbital integrations of the moons, including the Martian oblateness of the $J_2$ and $J_4$ terms. We show that the two moons, while they precess, likely collide within $\sim 10^4$ years with an impact velocity of $v_{\rm imp} \sim 100-300$ m s$^{-1}$ ($\sim 10-30$ times moons' escape velocity) and with an isotropic impact direction. The impact occurs around the apocenter and the pericenter of the inner and outer moons, respectively, where the timescale of this periodic orbital alignment is regulated by the precession. By performing additional impact simulations, we show that such a high-velocity impact likely results in a disruptive outcome, forming a debris ring at around the Martian synchronous orbit, from which several small moons would accrete. Such an evolutionary path would eventually form a different Martian moons system from the one we see today. Therefore, it seems unlikely that Phobos and Deimos are split directly from a single ancestral moon.

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arXiv2022

Effect of impact velocity and angle on deformational heating and post-impact temperature

The record of impact induced shock-heating in meteorites is an important key for understanding the collisional history of the solar system. Material strength is important for impact heating, but the effect of impact angle and impact velocity on shear heating remains poorly understood. Here, we report three-dimensional oblique impact simulations, which confirm the enhanced heating due to material strength and explore the effects of impact angle and impact velocity. We find that oblique impacts with an impact angle that is steeper than 45 degree produce a similar amount of heated mass as vertical impacts. On the other hand, grazing impacts produce less heated mass and smaller heated regions compared to impacts at steeper angles. We derive an empirical formula of the heated mass, as a function of the impact angle and velocity. This formula can be used to estimate the impact conditions (velocity and angle) that had occurred and caused Ar loss in the meteoritic parent bodies. Furthermore, our results indicate that grazing impacts at higher impact velocities could generate a similar amount of heated material as vertical impacts at lower velocities. As the heated material produced by grazing impacts has experienced lower pressure than the material heated by vertical impacts, our results imply that grazing impacts may produce weakly shock-heated meteorites.

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arXiv2022

Shock recovery with decaying compressive pulses: Shock effects in calcite (CaCO$_3$) around the Hugoniot elastic limit

Shock metamorphism of minerals in meteorites provides insights into the ancient Solar System. Calcite is an abundant aqueous alteration mineral in carbonaceous chondrites. Return samples from the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu are expected to contain calcite-group minerals. Although shock metamorphism in silicates has been well studied, such data for aqueous alteration minerals are limited. Here, we investigated the shock effects in calcite with marble using impact experiments at the Planetary Exploration Research Center of Chiba Institute of Technology. We produced decaying compressive pulses with a smaller projectile than the target. A metal container facilitates recovery of a sample that retains its pre-impact stratigraphy. We estimated the peak pressure distributions in the samples with the iSALE shock physics code. The capability of this method to produce shocked grains that have experienced different degrees of metamorphism from a single experiment is an advantage over conventional uniaxial shock recovery experiments. The shocked samples were investigated by polarizing microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis. We found that more than half of calcite grains exhibit undulatory extinction when peak pressure exceeds 3 GPa. This shock pressure is one order of magnitude higher than the Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL) of marble, but it is close to the HEL of a calcite crystal, suggesting that the undulatory extinction records dislocation-induced plastic deformation in the crystal. Finally, we propose a strategy to re-construct the maximum depth of calcite grains in a meteorite parent body, if shocked calcite grains are identified in chondrites and/or return samples from Ryugu and Bennu.

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arXiv2022

Giant Impact onto a Vesta-Like Asteroid and Formation of Mesosiderites through Mixing of Metallic Core and Surface Crust

Mesosiderites are a type of stony-iron meteorites composed of a mixture of silicates and Fe-Ni metals. The mesosiderite silicates and metals are considered to have originated from the crust and metal core, respectively, of a differentiated asteroid. In contrast, mesosiderites rarely contain the olivine that is mainly included in a mantle. Although a giant impact onto a differentiated asteroid is considered to be a probable mechanism to mix crust and metal materials to form mesosiderites, it is not obvious how such a giant impact can form mesosiderite-like materials without including mantle materials. We conducted numerical simulations of giant impacts onto differentiated asteroids, using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method, to investigate the detailed distribution of mixed materials on the resultant bodies. For the internal structure of a target body, we used a thin-crust model derived from the magma ocean crystallization model of the asteroid Vesta and a thick-crust and a large-core model suggested from the proximity observation of Vesta by the Dawn probe. In the simulations with the former model, excavation of the metal core requires nearly catastrophic impacts and mantle is exposed over large surface areas. Thus, stony-iron materials produced on its surface are likely to include mantle materials and it is difficult to produce mesosiderite-like materials. Conversely, in the simulations with the latter model, mantle materials are exposed only at impact sites, even when the impacts excavate the metal core, and the formation of a surface with little mantle material and the formation of mesosiderite-like materials are possible. Therefore, our simulations suggest that an internal structure with a thick crust and a large core is more likely as a mesosiderite parent body rather than the thin-crust internal structure inferred from the conventional magma ocean model.

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arXiv2021

Numerous chondritic impactors and oxidized magma ocean set Earth's volatile depletion

Earth's surface environment is largely influenced by its budget of major volatile elements: carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and hydrogen (H). Although the volatiles on Earth are thought to have been delivered by chondritic materials, the elemental composition of the bulk silicate Earth (BSE) shows depletion in the order of N, C, and H. Previous studies have concluded that non-chondritic materials are needed for this depletion pattern. Here, we model the evolution of the volatile abundances in the atmosphere, oceans, crust, mantle, and core through the accretion history by considering elemental partitioning and impact erosion. We show that the BSE depletion pattern can be reproduced from continuous accretion of chondritic bodies by the partitioning of C into the core and H storage in the magma ocean in the main accretion stage and atmospheric erosion of N in the late accretion stage. This scenario requires a relatively oxidized magma ocean ($\log_{10} f_{\rm O_2}$ $\gtrsim$ $\rm{IW}$$-2$, where $f_{\rm O_2}$ is the oxygen fugacity, ${\rm IW}$ is $\log_{10} f_{\rm O_2}^{\rm IW}$, and $f_{\rm O_2}^{\rm IW}$ is $f_{\rm O_2}$ at the iron-wüstite buffer), the dominance of small impactors in the late accretion, and the storage of H and C in oceanic water and carbonates in the late accretion stage, all of which are naturally expected from the formation of an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone.

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arXiv2021

Tidal evolution of the eccentric moon around dwarf planet (225088) Gonggong

Recent astronomical observations revealed that (225088) Gonggong, a 1000-km-sized trans-Neptunian dwarf planet, hosts an eccentric satellite, Xiangliu, with an eccentricity of approximately 0.3. As the majority of known satellite systems around trans-Neptunian dwarf planets have circular orbits, the observed eccentricity of Gonggong--Xiangliu system may reflect the singular properties of the system. In this study, we assumed that Gonggong--Xiangliu system formed via a giant impact and investigated the following secular tidal evolution of Gonggong--Xiangliu system under the simplifying assumption of homogeneous bodies and of zero orbital inclination. We conducted coupled thermal--orbital evolution simulations using the Andrade viscoelastic model and included higher-order eccentricity functions. The distribution of the final eccentricity from a large number of simulations with different initial conditions revealed that the radius of Xiangliu is not larger than 100 km. We also derived the analytical solution of the semilatus rectum evolution, a function of the radius of Xiangliu. From the point of view of the final semilatus rectum, the radius of Xiangliu was estimated to be close to 100 km. Together with the results of the Hubble Space Telescope observations, our findings suggest Gonggong and Xiangliu have similar albedos.

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arXiv2021

SPH Simulations for Shape Deformation of Rubble-Pile Asteroids Through Spinup: The Challenge for Making Top-Shaped Asteroids Ryugu and Bennu

Asteroid Ryugu and asteroid Bennu, which were recently visited by spacecraft Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, respectively, are spinning top-shaped rubble piles. Other axisymmetric top-shaped near-Earth asteroids have been observed with ground-based radar, most of which rotate near breakup rotation periods of ~ 3 hours. This suggests that rotation-induced deformation of asteroids through rotational spinup produces top shapes. Although some previous simulations using the Discrete Element Method showed that spinup of rubble piles may produce oblate top shapes, it is still unclear what kinds of conditions such as friction angles of constituent materials and spinup timescales are required for top-shape formation. Here we show, through Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations of granular bodies spinning-up at different rates, that the rotation-induced deformation of spherical rubble piles before breakup can be classified into three modes according to the friction angle ϕ_{d}: quasi-static and internal deformation for ϕ_{d} < 40 degrees, dynamical and internal deformation for 50 degrees < ϕ_{d} < 60 degrees, and surface landslides for ϕ_{d} > 70 degrees. Note that these apparent large values of friction angle can be acceptable if we consider the effect of cohesion among blocks of a rubble pile under weak gravity. Bodies with ϕ_{d} < 60 degrees evolve into oblate spheroids through internal deformation, but never form pronounced equators defining a top shape. In contrast, bodies with ϕ_{d} > 70 degrees deform into axisymmetric top shapes through an axisymmetric surface landslides if spinup timescales are < a few days. In addition, through slow spinups with timescales > 1 month, bodies with ϕ_{d} > 70 degrees deform into non-axisymmetric shapes via localized landslides. We suggest that rapid spinup mechanisms are preferable for the formation of axisymmetric top shapes.

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arXiv2021

Erosion and accretion by cratering impacts on rocky and icy bodies

During planet formation, numerous small impacting bodies result in cratering impacts on large target bodies. A fraction of the target surface is eroded, while a fraction of the impactor material accretes onto the surface. These fractions depend upon the impact velocities, the impact angles, and the escape velocities of the target. This study uses smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to model cratering impacts onto a planar icy target for which gravity is the dominant force and material strength is neglected. By evaluating numerical results, scaling laws are derived for the escape mass of the target material and the accretion mass of the impactor material onto the target surface. Together with recently derived results for rocky bodies in a companion study, a conclusion is formulated that typical cratering impacts on terrestrial planets, except for those on Mercury, led to a net accretion, while those on the moons of giant planets, e.g., Rhea and Europa, led to a net erosion. Our newly derived scaling laws would be useful for predicting the erosion of the target body and the accretion of the impactor for a variety of cratering impacts that would occur on large rocky and icy planetary bodies during planet formation and collisional evolution from ancient times to today.

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arXiv2021

The role of post-shock heating by plastic deformation during impact devolatilization of calcite

An accurate understanding of the relationship between the impact conditions and the degree of shock-induced thermal metamorphism in meteorites allows the impact environment in the early Solar System to be understood. A recent hydrocode has revealed that impact heating is much higher than previously thought. This is because plastic deformation of the shocked rocks causes further heating during decompression, which is termed post-shock heating. Here we compare impact simulations with laboratory experiments on the impact devolatilization of calcite to investigate whether the post-shock heating is also significant in natural samples. We calculated the mass of CO$_2$ produced from the calcite, based on thermodynamics. We found that iSALE can reproduce the devolatilization behavior for rocks with the strength of calcite. In contrast, the calculated masses of CO2 at lower rock strengths are systematically smaller than the experimental values. Our results require a reassessment of the interpretation of thermal metamorphism in meteorites.

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