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| Formato: | Preprint |
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2026
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| Acceso en línea: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17561 |
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| _version_ | 1866914464482197504 |
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| author | Menichella, Mario |
| author_facet | Menichella, Mario |
| contents | We compile a systematic mass inventory of the Solar System excluding the Sun, drawing on spacecraft measurements, planetary ephemerides, and population surveys of small-body populations including main-belt asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects. Using a Monte Carlo simulation with 100,000 realisations, and treating poorly constrained components (scattered disc, Oort cloud) as log-normal distributions, we obtain a total non-solar mass of 462 Earth masses (median), with a 68% credible interval of [451, 515] Earth masses and a 90% credible interval of [449, 642] Earth masses. The giant planets dominate the mass budget (96.2% of the total). A variance decomposition shows that 98.2% of the total uncertainty is attributable to a single component: the inner Oort cloud (Hills cloud), for which no direct observational constraints exist. The current small-body populations retain only ~0.2% of the primordial trans-Neptunian disc mass inferred from Nice model simulations, and ~0.04% of the primordial asteroid belt mass implied by the Grand Tack hypothesis. We identify constraints on the Oort cloud from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and improved long-period comet surveys as the primary path toward a better-determined total mass budget. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_17561 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Mass Inventory of the Solar System Beyond the Sun: A Systematic Compilation with Uncertainty Budget Menichella, Mario Earth and Planetary Astrophysics We compile a systematic mass inventory of the Solar System excluding the Sun, drawing on spacecraft measurements, planetary ephemerides, and population surveys of small-body populations including main-belt asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects. Using a Monte Carlo simulation with 100,000 realisations, and treating poorly constrained components (scattered disc, Oort cloud) as log-normal distributions, we obtain a total non-solar mass of 462 Earth masses (median), with a 68% credible interval of [451, 515] Earth masses and a 90% credible interval of [449, 642] Earth masses. The giant planets dominate the mass budget (96.2% of the total). A variance decomposition shows that 98.2% of the total uncertainty is attributable to a single component: the inner Oort cloud (Hills cloud), for which no direct observational constraints exist. The current small-body populations retain only ~0.2% of the primordial trans-Neptunian disc mass inferred from Nice model simulations, and ~0.04% of the primordial asteroid belt mass implied by the Grand Tack hypothesis. We identify constraints on the Oort cloud from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and improved long-period comet surveys as the primary path toward a better-determined total mass budget. |
| title | Mass Inventory of the Solar System Beyond the Sun: A Systematic Compilation with Uncertainty Budget |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17561 |