Related papers: Jupiter - friend or foe? II: the Centaurs
We extend previous results showing that the surfaces of Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects are not primordial and have been moderately to heavily reworked by collisions. Objects smaller than about $r = 2.5$ km have collisional disruption…
The asteroid belt is an open window on the history of the Solar System, as it preserves records of both its formation process and its secular evolution. The progenitors of the present-day asteroids formed in the Solar Nebula almost…
We predict how a remote observer would see the brightness variations of giant planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn as they orbit their central stars. We model the geometry of Jupiter, Saturn and Saturn's rings for varying orbital and…
The orbital distributions of currently observed extrasolar giant planets allow marginally stable orbits for hypothetical, terrestrial planets. In this paper, we propose that many of these systems may not have additional planets on these…
The current giant planet region is a transitional zone where transneptunian objects (TNOs) cross in their way to becoming Jupiter Family Comets (JFCs). Their dynamical behavior is conditioned by the intrinsic dynamical features of TNOs and…
We used high-precision radial velocity measurements of FGKM stars to determine the occurrence of giant planets as a function of orbital separation spanning 0.03-30 au. Giant planets are more prevalent at orbital distances of 1-10 au…
From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short-period exoplanets pose a severe puzzle to theories of planet formation and orbital evolution. By far most of the planets known beyond the…
We seek to characterize giant-planet systems by their gravitational scattering properties. We do this to a given system by integrating it numerically along with a large number of hypothetical small bodies that are initially in eccentric…
The majority of stars form in star clusters and many are thought to have planetary companions. We demonstrate that multi-planet systems are prone to instabilities as a result of frequent stellar encounters in these star clusters much more…
Recent simulations show that giant planets of about one Jupiter mass migrate inward at a rate that differs from the Type II prediction. Here we show that at higher masses, planets migrate outward. Our result differs from previous ones…
Hot Jupiters are giant Jupiter-like exoplanets that orbit 100x closer to their host stars than Jupiter does to the Sun. These planets presumably form in the outer part of the primordial disc from which both the central star and surrounding…
Although warm jupiters are generally too far from their stars for tides to be important, the presence of an inner planetary companion to a warm jupiter can result in tidal evolution of the system. Insight into the process and its effects…
While cooler giant planets are often observed with non-zero eccentricities, the short-period circular orbits of hot Jupiters suggest that they lose orbital energy and angular momentum due to tidal interactions with their host stars.…
Cosmic collisions on planets cause detectable optical flashes that range from terrestrial shooting stars to bright fireballs. On June 3, 2010 a bolide in Jupiter's atmosphere was simultaneously observed from the Earth by two amateur…
We investigate the possibility that the Moon's formation impact was triggered by an early dynamical instability of the giant planets. We consider the well-studied "jumping Jupiter" hypothesis for the solar system's instability, where…
Impacts from icy and rocky bodies have helped shape the composition of solar system objects, for example the Earth-Moon system, or the recent impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. It is likely that such impacts also shape the…
We numerically study the dynamical evolution of observed samples of active and inactive Centaurs and clones that reach the Jupiter-Saturn region. Our aim is to compare the evolution between active and inactive Centaurs, their end states and…
A numerical simulation of the Oort cloud is used to explain the observed orbital distributions and numbers of Jupiter-family and Halley-type short-period comets. Comets are given initial orbits with perihelion distances between 5 and 36 AU,…
It is a well-known fact that the presence of a massive perturber interacting with a population of minor bodies following very eccentric orbits can strongly affect the distribution of their nodal distances. The details of this process have…
Changes in planetary obliquity, or axial tilt, influence the climates on Earth-like planets. In the solar system, the Earth's obliquity is stabilized due to interactions with our moon and the resulting {small amplitude variations…