Related papers: On the origin of eccentricities among extrasolar p…

There are two planetary formation scenarios: core accretion and gravitational disk instability. Based on the fact that gaseous objects are preferentially observed around metal-rich host stars, most extra-solar gaseous objects discovered to…

Observations of the population of cold Jupiter planets ($r>$1 AU) show that nearly all of these planets orbit their host star on eccentric orbits. For planets up to a few Jupiter masses, eccentric orbits are thought to be the outcome of…

Numerical hydrodynamics calculations are performed to determine conditions under which giant planet eccentricities can be excited by parent gas disks. Unlike in other studies, Jupiter-mass planets are found to have their eccentricities…

The planets of our solar system formed from a gas-dust disk. However, there are some properties of the solar system that are peculiar in this context. First, the cumulative mass of all objects beyond Neptune (TNOs) is only a fraction of…

Warm giant planets with orbital periods of tens of days exhibit a positive correlation between mass and eccentricity. We interpret this trend as the outcome of planet-planet scattering, representing a transition from collision-dominated…

Evidence of mutually inclined planetary orbits has been reported for giant planets these last years. Here we aim to study the impact of eccentric and inclined massive giant planets on the terrestrial planet formation process, and…

Exoplanets whose orbit is misaligned with the spin of their host star could have originated from high-speed gas blobs, which are observed in multitudes in nearby supernova remnants and planetary nebulae. These blobs grow in mass and slow…

We show that interaction with a gas disk may produce young planetary systems with closely-spaced orbits, stabilized by mean-motion resonances between neighbors. On longer timescales, after the gas is gone, interaction with a remnant…

The high eccentricities of the known extrasolar planets remain largely unexplained. We explore the possibility that eccentricities are excited in the outer parts of an extended planetary disk by encounters with stars passing at a few…

Exoplanet surveys have confirmed one of humanity's (and all teenagers') worst fears: we are weird. If our Solar System were observed with present-day Earth technology -- to put our system and exoplanets on the same footing -- Jupiter is the…

With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…

Planet-planet scattering best explains the eccentricity distribution of extrasolar giant planets. Past literature showed that the orbits of planets evolve due to planet-planet scattering. This work studies the spin evolution of planets in…

Gas giant planets are far easier than terrestrial planets to detect around other stars, and are thought to form much more quickly than terrestrial planets. Thus, in systems with giant planets, the late stages of terrestrial planet formation…

The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas giants…

The nearly circular (mean eccentricity <e>~0.06) and coplanar (mean mutual inclination <i>~3 deg) orbits of the Solar System planets motivated Kant and Laplace to put forth the hypothesis that planets are formed in disks, which has…

Studies of transiting extra-solar planets are of key importance for understanding the nature of planets outside our Solar System, because their densities can be determined, constraining of what the planets are made of. Using the data…

The search for extrasolar Earth-like planets is underway. Over 100 extrasolar giant planets are known to orbit nearby sun-like stars, including several in multiple-planet systems. These planetary systems are stepping stones for the search…

The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about…

The equilibrium rotation of tidally evolved "Earth-like" extra-solar planets is often assumed to be synchronous with their orbital mean motion. The same assumption persisted for Mercury and Venus until radar observations revealed their true…

Gas giants orbiting interior to the ice line are thought to have been displaced from their formation locations by processes that remain debated. Here we uncover several new metallicity trends, which together may indicate that two competing…