Related papers: Jupiter - friend or foe? II: the Centaurs
Through its connection with HED meteorites, Vesta is known as one of the first bodies to have accreted and differentiated in the Solar Nebula, predating the formation of Jupiter and surviving the violent evolution of the early Solar System.…
The presence of ``Hot Jupiters'', Jovian mass planets with very short orbital periods orbiting nearby main sequence stars, has been proposed to be primarily due to the orbital migration of planets formed in orbits initially much further…
We study the influence of outer Solar System architecture on the structural evolution of the Oort Cloud (OC) and the flux of Earth-crossing comets. In particular, we seek to quantify the role of the giant planets as "planetary protectors".…
The detectability of planetesimal impacts on imaged exoplanets can be measured using Jupiter during the 1994 comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 events as a proxy. By integrating the whole planet flux with and without impact spots, the effect of the…
Observed Hot Jupiters exhibit a wide range of physical properties. For a given mass, many planets have inflated radii, while others are surprisingly compact and may harbor large central cores. Motivated by the observational sample, this…
Many of the unusual properties of Pluto's orbit are widely accepted as evidence for the orbital migration of the giant planets in early solar system history. However, some properties remain an enigma. Pluto's long term orbital stability is…
A fundamental question in the study of planetary system demographics is: how common is the solar system architecture? The primary importance of this question lies in the potential of planetary systems to create habitable environments, and…
The recent publication by Siraj & Loeb (2021; Nature Scientific Reports 11, 3803) attempts to revive the debate over whether the Chicxulub impactor was a comet or an asteroid. They calculate that ~20% of long-period comets impacting Earth…
Close-in planets are in jeopardy as their host stars evolve off the main sequence to the subgiant and red giant phases. In this paper, we explore the influences of the stellar mass (in the range 1.5--2\Mso ), mass-loss prescription, planet…
Although the present-day orbital distribution of minor bodies that go around the Sun between the orbit of Neptune and the Kuiper Cliff is well understood, past ~50 au from the Sun, our vision gets blurred as objects become fainter and…
Large-scale simulations of the Centaur population are carried out. The evolution of 23328 particles based on the orbits of 32 well-known Centaurs is followed for up to 3 Myr in the forward and backward direction under the influence of the 4…
Giant planets are tens to thousands of times as massive as the Earth, and many times as large. Most of their volumes are occupied by hydrogen and helium, the primary constituents of the protostellar disks from which they formed.…
Numerical simulations show that the migration of growing planetary cores may be dominated by turbulent fluctuations in the protoplanetary disk, rather than by any mean property of the flow. We quantify the impact of this stochastic core…
Young planetary systems are subjected to different dynamical effects that can influence their orbital structure over time. In systems with more than one planet, other planets can internally influence each other, e.g. via planet-planet…
We employ an efficient numerical approach to simulate a stationary distribution of test objects, which results from their gravitational scattering on the four giant planets, with accounting for effects of mean motion resonances. Using the…
A large fraction of stars are formed in dense clusters. In the cluster, close encounters between stars at distances less than 100 au are common. It has been shown that during close encounters planets can transfer between stars. Such…
Giant impacts refer to collisions between two objects each of which is massive enough to be considered at least a planetary embryo. The putative collision suffered by the proto-Earth that created the Moon is a prime example, though most…
We review the interior structure and evolution of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and extrasolar giant planets with particular emphasis on constraining their global composition.
On 2009 July 19, we observed a single, large impact on Jupiter at a planetocentric latitude of 55^{\circ}S. This and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) impacts on Jupiter in 1994 are the only planetary-scale impacts ever observed. The 2009 impact…
We demonstrate dynamical pathways from main-belt asteroid and Centaur orbits to those in co-orbital motion with Jupiter, including the retrograde (inclination $i>90^o$) state. We estimate that at any given time, there should be $\sim1$…