Speaker
Description
Icy satellites form by accreting ice-rich planetesimals within the circumplanetary disk of their host planet. Under short accretion timescales, the resulting impact energy can vaporize surface ices, generating a transient water-vapor atmosphere. We present preliminary results of numerical simulations performed to study the heating, melting, and ice-rock separation at the surface of these satellites, incorporating accretion luminosity and the thermal blanketing effect of the water-vapor atmosphere as key surface heating sources. The surface temperature during accretion is determined by the balance between the incoming flux—from accreting planetesimals and the Sun—and the outgoing flux consumed by atmospheric escape and the latent heat of vaporization. The results show significant heating of the satellite surface for short accretion timescales (< 0.1 Ma), which caused ice-rock separation and formation of water-vapor atmosphere.