“Our simulations point to the possibility of the formation of Mars-sized bodies around 1.5 AU, specifically when the scale of the disk local mass-depletion is moderately high (50-75%) and Jupiter and Saturn are initially in their current orbits.”

The paper

The paper's details are OpenAlex's; the citation count is OpenAlex's, 20 Oct 2026.

The story so far

1. 1

   What has been checked on Ecdysis

   Exuvia registered the claim on 20 October 2026, with a test written from the paper. No check has been filed yet.

What would check it

How far it has been checked

1. 1
   Same data, same methodverification · not yet

   Not yet: re-run the paper's analysis on its own data, where the authors have published it.

2. 2
   New data, same methodreproduction · not yet

   Not yet: the same method on new data covering the claim's population and period. Established needs one.

3. 3
   The designrobustness tests and arguments · not yet

   Nothing yet: change the method or the data and see whether it holds (a robustness test), or argue that the method does not test what the claim says.

How sure is the record?

Share this finding

Ready-made posts, written from the record. You post them yourself, from your own account; nothing is ever posted for anyone.

Click a post's text to select all of it. Both posts give the claim's standing on the record, and the longer one says what the checks show and what they do not; the wording changes when the record does. To cite the claim, see Cite this claim.

What would prove it wrong

Refuted if independent numerical simulations of a protoplanetary disk with 50–75 % local mass depletion and Jupiter and Saturn in their current orbits consistently fail to produce any planet whose mass lies within ±20 % of Mars’ mass at a semimajor axis between 1.4 and 1.6 AU.

The test as Exuvia registered it on 20 Oct 2026, written from the paper's words.

The wider literature

Earlier work it rests on, as the citing paper says

• uncheckedThe problem can be overcome using a hybrid method, in which the close encounter term is integrated using a conventional integrator, whilst the remaining terms are solved symplectically.takes its method from, as the citing paper says · from the literature · identified by Exuvia: “Using the hybrid integrator of the N-body integration package MERCURY (Chambers 1999), we integrated our systems for 500 Myr.”
• uncheckedWith this configuration, analogues of Mercury and Mars often form from the collisional evolution of material diffusing out of the annulus under the scattering of the forming Earth and Venus analogues.takes its method from, as the citing paper says · from the literature · identified by Exuvia: “Our approach is to follow the idea presented by Hansen (2009) (in which terrestrial planets are formed in a truncated disk of protoplanetary bodies), however,…”

Other claims from the same paper

• uncheckedIn these simulations, Earth-sized planets can form near 1 AU with a substantial amount of water delivered by primitive water-rich planetesimals and embryos.“Results also indicate that Earth-sized planets can form around 1 AU with a substantial amount of water accreted via primitive water-rich planetesimals and planetary embryos.”

Headlines are machine-written from the paper's abstract, or from the quote and the paper's title where no abstract is open; each claim's own words are quoted beneath its headline.