Related papers: Six Hot Topics in Planetary Astronomy
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
Low-mass stars play a key role in many different areas of astrophysics. In this article, I provide a brief overview of the evolution of low-mass stars, and discuss some of the uncertainties and problems currently affecting low-mass stellar…
Dark matter is, arguably, the most widely discussed topic in contemporary particle physics. Written in the language of particle physics and quantum field theory, these notes focus on a set of standard calculations needed to understand…
Outer satellites of the planets have distant, eccentric orbits that can be highly inclined or even retrograde relative to the equatorial planes of their planets. These irregular orbits cannot have formed by circumplanetary accretion and are…
Cosmology now provides unambiguous, quantitative evidence for new particle physics. I discuss the implications of cosmology for supersymmetry and vice versa. Topics include: motivations for supersymmetry; supersymmetry breaking; dark…
Anomalous redshifts of some galactic objects such as binary stars, early-type stars in the solar neighborhood, and O stars in a star clusters are discussed. It is shown that all these phenomena have a common characteristic, that is, the…
The common attribute of all Big Bang cosmologies is that they are based on the assumption that the universe is expanding. However examination of the evidence for this expansion clearly favours a static universe. The major topics considered…
We review recent advances in our understanding of massive stars through the analysis of their spectra. Improvements in model atmospheres and analysis methods are briefly discussed. Results obtained for stars in the Local Group are compared…
A critical review of the very long-standing problem of the diffuse interstellar bands is presented with emphasis on spectroscopic aspects of observational, modelling and laboratory-based research. Some research themes and ideas that could…
At the dawn of the first discovery of exoplanets orbiting sun-like stars in the mid-1990s, few believed that observations of exoplanet atmospheres would ever be possible. After the 2002 Hubble Space Telescope detection of a transiting…
In order to characterize giant exoplanets and better understand their origin, knowledge of how the planet's composition depends on its mass and stellar environment is required. In this work, we simulate the thermal evolution of gaseous…
Extrasolar planetary systems range from hot Jupiters out to icy comet belts more distant than Pluto. We explain this diversity in a model where the mass of solids in the primordial circumstellar disk dictates the outcome. The star retains…
Ranked near the top of the long list of exciting discoveries made with NASA's Kepler photometer is the detection of transiting circumbinary planets. In just over a year the number of such planets went from zero to seven, including a…
In this brief invited review, I will attempt to summarise some of the key areas of interest in the study of central stars of planetary nebulae which (probably) won't be covered by other speakers' proceedings. The main focus will,…
In the first Lecture, the Big Bang and the Standard Model of particle physics are introduced, as well as the structure of the latter and open issues beyond it. Neutrino physics is discussed in the second Lecture, with emphasis on models for…
Black holes and neutron stars present extreme forms of matter that cannot be created as such in a laboratory on Earth. Instead, we have to observe and analyze the experiments that are ongoing in the Universe. The most telling observations…
We briefly examine the properties of dense plasmas characteristic of the interior of giant planets and the atmospheres of neutron stars. Special attention is devoted to the equation of state of hydrogen and helium at high density and to the…
These lectures cover three topics in neutrino astrophysics. The solar neutrino problem is reviewed, with particular emphasis on the microphysics of the standard solar model, detector responses, the quantum mechanics of the MSW mechanism,…
This article summarizes the possible roles of neutrinos in cosmology, from the first three minutes onward. The fact that primordial neutrinos are about as numerous as the photons of the cosmological background radiation means that neutrino…
A fundamental question in cometary science is whether the different dynamical classes of comets have different chemical compositions, which would reflect different initial conditions. From the ground or Earth orbit, radio and infrared…