Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution mechanism
s that act as a function of size, distance from the Sun, and the properties of their nebular environment at the beginning of Solar System history and their dynamical environment over the next 4.5 Gyr. The mere existence of these systems provides a laboratory to study numerous types of physical processes acting on asteroids and their dynamics provide a valuable probe of their physical properties otherwise possible only with spacecraft. Advances in understanding the formation and evolution of binary systems have been assisted by: 1) the growing catalog of known systems, increasing from 33 to nearly 250 between the Merline et al. (2002) Asteroids III chapter and now, 2) the detailed study and long-term monitoring of individual systems such as 1999 KW4 and 1996 FG3, 3) the discovery of new binary system morphologies and triple systems, 4) and the discovery of unbound systems that appear to be end-states of binary dynamical evolutionary paths. Specifically for small bodies (diameter smaller than 10 km), these observations and discoveries have motivated theoretical work finding that thermal forces can efficiently drive the rotational disruption of small asteroids. Long-term monitoring has allowed studies to constrain the systems dynamical evolution by the combination of tides, thermal forces and rigid body physics. The outliers and split pairs have pushed the theoretical work to explore a wide range of evolutionary end-states.
The formation of the Earths core is a consequence of planetary accretion and processes in the Earths interior. The mechanical process of planetary differentiation is likely to occur in large, if not global, magma oceans created by the collisions of p
lanetary embryos. Metal-silicate segregation in magma oceans occurs rapidly and efficiently unlike grain scale percolation according to laboratory experiments and calculations. Geochemical models of the core formation process as planetary accretion proceeds are becoming increasingly realistic. Single stage and continuous core formation models have evolved into multi-stage models that are couple to the output of dynamical models of the giant impact phase of planet formation. The models that are most successful in matching the chemical composition of the Earths mantle, based on experimentally-derived element partition coefficients, show that the temperature and pressure of metal-silicate equilibration must increase as a function of time and mass accreted and so must the oxygen fugacity of the equilibrating material. The latter can occur if silicon partitions into the core and through the late delivery of oxidized material. Coupled dynamical accretion and multi-stage core formation models predict the evolving mantle and core compositions of all the terrestrial planets simultaneously and also place strong constraints on the bulk compositions and oxidation states of primitive bodies in the protoplanetary disk.
The growth and composition of Earth is a direct consequence of planet formation throughout the Solar System. We discuss the known history of the Solar System, the proposed stages of growth and how the early stages of planet formation may be dominated
by pebble growth processes. Pebbles are small bodies whose strong interactions with the nebula gas lead to remarkable new accretion mechanisms for the formation of planetesimals and the growth of planetary embryos. Many of the popular models for the later stages of planet formation are presented. The classical models with the giant planets on fixed orbits are not consistent with the known history of the Solar System, fail to create a high Earth/Mars mass ratio, and, in many cases, are also internally inconsistent. The successful Grand Tack model creates a small Mars, a wet Earth, a realistic asteroid belt and the mass-orbit structure of the terrestrial planets. In the Grand Tack scenario, growth curves for Earth most closely match a Weibull model. The feeding zones, which determine the compositions of Earth and Venus follow a particular pattern determined by Jupiter, while the feeding zones of Mars and Theia, the last giant impactor on Earth, appear to randomly sample the terrestrial disk. The late accreted mass samples the disk nearly evenly.
