quality:correction, quality:corruption, structural:summarization
Exoplanets

Thousands of exoplanets have been identified in the last twenty years, with, at the very least, billions more, within our observable universe, yet to be discovered. The orbits of many of these planets and systems of planets differ significantly from the planets in the Solar System. The exoplanets discovered include hot-Jupiters, warm-Jupiters, super-Earths, and systems of tightly packed inner planets.

The hot-Jupiters and warm-Jupiters are thought to have migrated to their current orbits during or following their formation. A number of possible mechanisms for this migration have been proposed. Type I or Type II migration could smoothly decrease the semimajor axis of the planet's orbit resulting in a warm- or hot-Jupiter. Gravitational scattering by other planets onto eccentric orbits with a perihelion near the star followed by the circularization of its orbit due to tidal interactions with the star can leave a planet on a close orbit. If a massive companion planet or star on an inclined orbit was present an exchange of inclination for eccentricity via the Kozai mechanism raising eccentricities and lowering perihelion followed by circularization can also result in a close orbit. Many of the Jupiter-sized planets have eccentric orbits which may indicate that gravitational encounters occurred between the planets, although migration while in resonance can also excite eccentricities. The in situ growth of hot Jupiters from closely orbiting super Earths has also been proposed. The cores in this hypothesis could have formed locally or at a greater distance and migrated close to the star.

Super-Earths and other closely orbiting planets are thought to have either formed in situ or ex situ, that is, to have migrated inward from their initial locations. The in situ formation of closely orbiting super-Earths would require a massive disk, the migration of planetary embryos followed by collisions and mergers, or the radial drift of small solids from farther out in the disk. The migration of the super-Earths, or the embryos that collided to form them, is likely to have been Type I due to their smaller mass. The resonant orbits of some of the exoplanet systems indicates that some migration occurred in these systems, while the spacing of the orbits in many of the other systems not in resonance indicates that an instability likely occurred in those systems after the dissipation of the gas disk. The absence of Super-Earths and closely orbiting planets in the Solar System may be due to the previous formation of Jupiter blocking their inward migration.

The amount of gas a super-Earth that formed in situ acquires may depend on when the planetary embryos merged due to giant impacts relative to the dissipation of the gas disk. If the mergers happen after the gas disk dissipates terrestrial planets can form, if in a transition disk a super-Earth with a gas envelope containing a few percent of its mass may form. If the mergers happen too early runaway gas accretion may occur leading to the formation of a gas giant. The mergers begin when the dynamical friction due to the gas disk becomes insufficient to prevent collisions, a process that will begin earlier in a higher metallicity disk. Alternatively gas accretion may be limited due to the envelopes not being in hydrostatic equilibrium, instead gas may flow through the envelope slowing its growth and delaying the onset of runaway gas accretion until the mass of the core reaches 15 Earth masses.