Causal Evidence for the Primordiality of Colors in Trans-Neptunian Objects
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866908434621792256 |
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| author | Davis, Benjamin L. Ali-Dib, Mohamad Zheng, Yujia Jin, Zehao Zhang, Kun Macciò, Andrea Valerio |
| author_facet | Davis, Benjamin L. Ali-Dib, Mohamad Zheng, Yujia Jin, Zehao Zhang, Kun Macciò, Andrea Valerio |
| contents | The origins of the colors of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) represent a crucial unresolved question, central to understanding the history of our Solar System. Recent observational surveys have revealed correlations between the eccentricity and inclination of TNOs and their colors. This has rekindled the long-standing debate on whether these colors reflect the conditions of TNO formation or their subsequent collisional evolution. In this study, we address this question with 98.7% certainty, using a model-agnostic, data-driven approach based on causal graphs. First, as a sanity check, we demonstrate how our model can replicate the currently accepted paradigms of TNOs' dynamical history, blindly and without any orbital modeling or physics-based assumptions. In fact, our causal model (with no knowledge of the existence of Neptune) predicts the existence of an unknown perturbing body, i.e., Neptune. We then show how this model predicts, with high certainty, that the color of TNOs is the root cause of their inclination distribution, rather than the other way around. This strongly suggests that the colors of TNOs reflect an underlying dynamical property, most likely their formation location. Moreover, our causal model excludes formation scenarios that invoke substantial color modification by subsequent irradiation. We therefore conclude that the colors of TNOs are predominantly primordial. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03760 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Causal Evidence for the Primordiality of Colors in Trans-Neptunian Objects Davis, Benjamin L. Ali-Dib, Mohamad Zheng, Yujia Jin, Zehao Zhang, Kun Macciò, Andrea Valerio Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Machine Learning The origins of the colors of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) represent a crucial unresolved question, central to understanding the history of our Solar System. Recent observational surveys have revealed correlations between the eccentricity and inclination of TNOs and their colors. This has rekindled the long-standing debate on whether these colors reflect the conditions of TNO formation or their subsequent collisional evolution. In this study, we address this question with 98.7% certainty, using a model-agnostic, data-driven approach based on causal graphs. First, as a sanity check, we demonstrate how our model can replicate the currently accepted paradigms of TNOs' dynamical history, blindly and without any orbital modeling or physics-based assumptions. In fact, our causal model (with no knowledge of the existence of Neptune) predicts the existence of an unknown perturbing body, i.e., Neptune. We then show how this model predicts, with high certainty, that the color of TNOs is the root cause of their inclination distribution, rather than the other way around. This strongly suggests that the colors of TNOs reflect an underlying dynamical property, most likely their formation location. Moreover, our causal model excludes formation scenarios that invoke substantial color modification by subsequent irradiation. We therefore conclude that the colors of TNOs are predominantly primordial. |
| title | Causal Evidence for the Primordiality of Colors in Trans-Neptunian Objects |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Machine Learning |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03760 |