Nice model

The Nice model explains Solar System evolution through the giant planets’ migration from a compact initial arrangement, which destabilized the outer Solar System and scattered small bodies.

Planetary migration: The change of a planet’s orbit over time through interactions with gas, planetesimals, or other planets. The model’s central process is migration driven by exchanges of orbital energy and angular momentum.
Giant planets: The four largest planets in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Their gravitational interactions supply the model’s planetary rearrangement.
Alessandro Morbidelli: An Italian planetary scientist known for research on Solar System formation and dynamics. Morbidelli helped develop and test the model’s planetary migration scenarios.
Late Heavy Bombardment: A proposed episode of elevated impact activity on the Moon and inner planets around 3.9 billion years ago. The model was proposed to link a giant-planet instability with increased impacts in the inner Solar System.
Five-planet Nice model: A Nice-model variant that begins with five giant planets, including an extra ice giant later ejected from the Solar System. This variant can better reproduce some present-day orbital constraints than four-planet versions.
Resonance crossing: A passage through a mean-motion resonance as orbiting bodies’ orbital periods change. Changing planetary orbits can carry Jupiter and Saturn through a resonance that destabilizes their companions.
Planetesimal disk: A population of small solid bodies orbiting a star, often left over from planet formation. The disk beyond the giant planets provides the material they scatter during migration.
Renu Malhotra: A planetary scientist known for showing how Neptune’s migration can explain resonant Kuiper belt populations. Her migration work supplied a key precedent for the model’s outer Solar System dynamics.
Trojan asteroids: Asteroids that share a planet’s orbit while clustering near its stable Lagrange points. The model can capture and redistribute Trojans during giant-planet orbital changes.
Jumping-Jupiter scenario: A planetary-instability scenario in which Jupiter’s orbit changes abruptly through encounters with an ice giant. It offers a rapid migration pathway that can preserve the terrestrial planets’ orbital structure.

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