Description du projet
L’origine de la Terre en tant que planète habitable
Bien que plusieurs modèles aient été formulés au cours des dernières décennies, la question fondamentale consistant à déterminer comment la Terre s’est formée, avec les propriétés qui en ont fait une planète habitable, reste sans réponse. Tous les modèles proposés n’ont été testés qu’à l’aune d’un nombre limité de contraintes (parfois différentes contraintes pour différents modèles, sans convergence commune). L’objectif du projet HolyEarth, financé par l’UE, est de résoudre cette difficulté par une approche globale, qui consiste à considérer le plus grand ensemble de contraintes observationnelles disponibles afin de dégager un scénario unique qui, pour la première fois, satisfasse simultanément toutes ces contraintes de manière cohérente et replace la formation de la Terre dans le contexte d’une évolution cosmique vers la formation d’étoiles et de planètes.
Objectif
How did Earth form with the properties that made it the only inhabited planet of the Solar System? Answering this question is the Holy Grail of planetary science and is key for (i) placing the formation of Earth into the context of general planet formation (ii) unveiling the fundamental processes that led to the formation of a planet able to sustain life and (iii) assessing the likelihood that similar processes occurred in other, extrasolar systems. However, despite decades of research, it is still unknown how Earth formed. Although several competing models exist, the reason we do not yet have a consensus on how Earth formed is that all proposed models have only been tested against a limited number of constraints (and sometimes different constraints for different models) with no common intersection. HolyEarth will overcome these limitations by developing a holistic approach to understand Earth’s formation that is based on the largest set of observational constraints: orbits, masses, formation timescales, chemical and isotopic properties of terrestrial planets and meteorites, and the structure of the asteroid belt (the relict of planet formation). The overarching goal of this project is to identify a unique scenario which, for the first time, simultaneously satisfies all these constraints in a self-consistent way. This project will break the boundaries between Earth science and astronomy by placing the formation of Earth in the context of a cosmic evolution towards stars and planets. Its impact will reach other scientific domains, such as biology and exobiology, and resonate with the public’s keen interest in the question of our origins.
Champ scientifique
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Régime de financement
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitution d’accueil
75794 Paris
France