Title:

                  NOTE: Neptune Scattered Planetesimals Could Have Sculpted the Primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt
 Authors:

                  Morbidelli, Alessandro; Valsecchi, Giovanni B.
 Affiliation:

                  AA(Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France), AB(Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France)
 Journal:

                  Icarus, Volume 128, Issue 2, pp. 464-468. (Icarus Homepage)
 Publication Date:

                  08/1997
 Origin:

                  ICAR
 Abstract Copyright:

                  (c) 1997: Academic Press
 Bibliographic Code:

                  1997Icar..128..464M
 

                                            Abstract

We show that Neptune-scattered planetesimals of a few Earth masses could have excited the eccentricities of the vast majority of
bodies in the primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. This could result in sculpting the belt to its currently observed structure and in
depleting most of its primordial mass by: (i) injecting most of the bodies from the stable into the unstable regions in the inner belt;
(ii) enhancing the role of mutual catastrophic collisions in the outer belt.