Related papers: Six Hot Topics in Planetary Astronomy
Over the past decade, neutrino astronomy has emerged as a new window into the extreme and hidden universe. Current-generation experiments have detected high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin and identified the first sources, opening…
Our galaxy is full with planets. We now know that planets and planetary systems are diverse and come with different sizes, masses and compositions, as well as various orbital architectures. Although there has been great progress in…
New systematic classification of cosmological models of the present Universe is introduced. After making the comparison of these models with all existing observational data three viable models remain: the cold dark matter model with the…
The major questions relevant to star and planet formation are: What controls the rate, efficiency, spatial clustering, multiplicity, and initial mass function of star formation, now and in the past? What are the major feedback mechanisms…
Astrophysical observations of the cosmos allow us to probe extreme physics and answer foundational questions on our universe. Modern astronomy is increasingly operating under a holistic approach, probing the same question with multiple…
Extreme Scattering Events and pulsar secondary spectra have highlighted fundamental problems in our understanding of the dynamics of interstellar turbulence. We describe some of these problems in detail and present the theory behind the…
The disciplines of asteroseismology and extrasolar planet science overlap methodically in the branch of high-precision photometric time series observations. Light curves are, amongst others, useful to measure intrinsic stellar variability…
This paper considers the dynamics of scattering of planetesimals or planetary embryos by a planet on a circumstellar orbit. We classify six regions in the planet's mass versus semimajor axis parameter space according to the dominant outcome…
Current burning issues in stellar physics, for both hot and cool stars, concern their magnetism. In hot stars, stable magnetic fields of fossil origin impact their stellar structure and circumstellar environment, with a likely major role in…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
Recent developments of dynamic x-ray characterization experiments of dense matter are reviewed, with particular emphasis on conditions relevant to interiors of terrestrial and gas giant planets. These studies include characterization of…
The formation and evolution of brown dwarfs are currently "hot topics" in cool star research. Latest observations and modeling efforts on disks, accretion, outflows, spatial distribution, and binarity in the context of the formation by…
A hot phase of the interstellar medium has now been detected and studied in several objects through its X-ray emission. A proper assessment of its characteristics is relevant for our understanding of several aspects of galaxy properties,…
Astronomers occasionally detect an object having unexpected shape, unexplainable photometry, or unprecedented spectra that are inconsistent with our contemporary knowledge of the universe. Upon careful assessment, many of these anomalies…
Eclipsing binary systems form the fundamental basis of Astronomy in the sense that they are the primary means to determine fundamental stellar astrophysical quantities such as mass, radius, and temperature. Furthermore, they allow us to…
This is a survey of the current experimental information on some of the interesting issues in neutrino physics: neutrino species, neutrino masses, neutrino magnetic moments, solar neutrinos, and the atmospheric neutrino anomaly.
The IceCube observatory is the first cubic kilometre scale instrument in the field of high-energy neutrino astronomy and cosmic rays. In 2009, following five successful deployment seasons, IceCube consisted of 59 strings of optical modules…
Neutron stars are the densest objects known in our visible universe. Properties of matter inside a neutron star are encoded in its equation of state, which has wide-ranging uncertainty from a theoretical perspective. With the current…
Amateur contributions to professional publications have increased exponentially over the last decades in the field of Planetary Astronomy. Here we review the different domains of the field in which collaborations between professional and…
Astronomers have discovered that both planets and binaries are abundant throughout the Galaxy. In combination, we know of over 100 planets in binary and higher-order multi-star systems, in both circumbinary and circumstellar configurations.…