Studies test theories of lost planets in early solar system (opens in new tab)

New research raises questions about versions of the Nice model, a widely used explanation for how the solar system’s giant planets migrated into their present orbits. Simulations led by astrophysicist Matthew Clement of Johns Hopkins University found that scenarios involving one or two additional ice giants ejected from the early solar system would often have destabilized Uranus’s moons more violently than their current state indicates. The Nice model, developed in 2005, proposes that Jupiter...