In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the Sun and the disc of gas and dust where the planets will appear. The gas giants – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – in a peripheral part. The Rockies – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – near the center. Reconstituting the scenario of this genesis is the “intellectual challenge” who had the audacity to raise Alessandro Morbidelli. A well-known problem “frameless”, ” unending “ et “without a precise and verifiable solution”, he said. The Italian, specialist in the dynamics of celestial bodies, CNRS research director at the Observatory of the Côte d’Azur and associate member of the Academy of Sciences, expected the best to “fueling scientific controversies”.
But, with three of his colleagues, in 2005 he unearthed a treasure: an entire and unpublished chapter of the great novel of our origins… The result of a series of digital simulations, the “Nice model” that his team proposed consisted in a seemingly incredible account of one of the final phases of the formation of the solar system. He imagined Jupiter and Saturn entering into resonance, destabilizing Uranus and Neptune and throwing them, like balls in a game of skittles, towards rows of icy moons, scattering them in all directions! But this model also had the immense advantage of providing, with supporting figures, a plausible explanation for several quirks of our current space environment. Establishing a relationship between contemporary phenomena and events four billion years old, of which no one had imagined finding traces…
Why does this sympathetic and friendly man whom the professor at the College de France and astrophysicist at the Paris-PSL Observatory Françoise Combe presents as a “world expert in the formation of planetary systems”and “great coordinator” equipped with a “sense of popularization”, did he choose to embark on this quest for primordial truths? The love of the job seems to be the best answer.
Vocation thwarted
At the age of 7 or 8, the young city-dweller discovers from the heights of Lake Garda, in Italy, the « magnificence » of the starry sky and, immediately, he is touched by grace. After reading books on astronomy and observing with the help of the small telescope received at Christmas, adolescence follows the choice of an orientation towards a scientific sector, with the secret hope of transforming his hobby into a job. . Alas, the city of Milan, where his family resides, does not have an astronomy faculty. There is indeed one in Bologna, but, between the concerns of a protective mother and the reluctance of a chemical engineer father in industry, “No need to consider setting foot there”.
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