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Mass Inventory of the Solar System Beyond the Sun: A Systematic Compilation with Uncertainty Budget

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abstract

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.

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astro-ph.EP 1

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2026 1

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The Persistent Missing Mass Problem in Planet Formation

astro-ph.EP · 2026-05-25 · unverdicted · novelty 5.0

Microlensing-inferred free-floating planets plus bound planets require more mass than protoplanetary disks supply, even at 100% conversion efficiency, potentially creating a crisis if the mass function is bottom-heavy.

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  • The Persistent Missing Mass Problem in Planet Formation astro-ph.EP · 2026-05-25 · unverdicted · none · ref 50 · internal anchor

    Microlensing-inferred free-floating planets plus bound planets require more mass than protoplanetary disks supply, even at 100% conversion efficiency, potentially creating a crisis if the mass function is bottom-heavy.