Related papers: On the oscillations in Mercury's obliquity
To characterize the meteoroid environment around Mercury and its contribution to the planet's exosphere, we combined four distinctive sources of meteoroids in the solar system: main-belt asteroids, Jupiter family comets, Halley-type comets,…
We examine the evolution of an almost circular Keplerian orbit interacting with unbound perturbers. We calculate the change in eccentricity and angular momentum that results from a single encounter, assuming the timescale for the…
In our previous study of Neptune's 4:7 mean motion resonance (MMR), we discovered that its resonant angle can only librate within a specific eccentricity ($e$) versus inclination ($i$) region, determined by a theoretical limiting curve…
We have investigated the obliquity evolution of terrestrial planets in habitable zones (at ~ 1AU) in extrasolar planetary systems, due to tidal interactions with their satellite and host star with wide varieties of satellite-to-planet mass…
Obliquity variability could play an important role in the climate and habitability of a planet. Orbital modulations caused by planetary companions and the planet's spin axis precession due to the torque from the host star may lead to…
Context. True spin-orbit obliquities {\Psi} offer valuable insights into the evolutionary history of exoplanetary systems. Previous studies have suggested that exoplanets tend to occupy either aligned or perpendicular orbits. However,…
A new symplectic N-body integrator is introduced, one designed to calculate the global 360 degree evolution of a self-gravitating planetary ring that is in orbit about an oblate planet. This freely-available code is called epi_int, and it…
Mercury's orbit can destabilize, generally resulting in a collision with either Venus or the Sun. Chaotic evolution can cause g1 to decrease to the approximately constant value of g5 and create a resonance. Previous work has approximated…
The non-resonant secular dynamics of compact planetary systems are modeled by a perturbing function which is usually expanded in eccentricity and absolute inclination with respect to the invariant plane. Here, the expressions are given in a…
In this study, we formulate a set of differential equations for a binary system to describe the secular-tidal evolution of orbital elements, rotational dynamics, and deformation (flattening), under the assumption that one body remains…
Motivated by the large number of extrasolar planetary systems that are near mean motion resonances, this paper explores a related type of dynamical behavior known as "nodding". Here, the resonance angle of a planetary system executes…
We study the effects of planetary late migration on the gas giants obliquities. We consider the planetary instability models from Nesvorny & Morbidelli (2012), in which the obliquities of Jupiter and Saturn can be excited when the…
Results on the obliquity of exoplanet host stars -- the angle between the stellar spin axis and the planetary orbital axis -- provide important diagnostic information for theories describing planetary formation. Here we present the first…
Despite the wide range of planet-star (mis)alignments in the mature population of transiting exoplanets, the small number of known young transiting planets are nearly all aligned with the rotation axes of their host stars, as determined by…
Compact multi-planet systems containing super-Earths or sub-Neptunes, commonly found around solar-type stars, may be surrounded by external giant planet or stellar companions, which can shape the architechture and observability of the inner…
The inner solar system's modern orbital architecture provides inferences into the epoch of terrestrial planet formation; a ~100 Myr time period of planet growth via collisions with planetesimals and other proto-planets. While classic…
We investigate the relativistic modeling of spacecraft motion in Mercury's post-Newtonian local coordinates. This investigation is motivated by the fact that Mercury's post-Newtonian gravitational field (as well as that of any other planet)…
Meridional circulation is a crucial component of the Sun's internal dynamics, but its inference in the deep interior is complicated by a systematic center-to-limb effect in helioseismic measurement techniques. Previously, an empirical…
Axisymmetric disks of eccentric Kepler orbits are vulnerable to an instability which causes orbits to exponentially grow in inclination, decrease in eccentricity, and cluster in their angle of pericenter. Geometrically, the disk expands to…
Mean motion resonances [MMRs] play an important role in the formation and evolution of planetary systems and have significantly influenced the orbital properties and distribution of planets and minor planets in the solar system as well as…