Related papers: How Common are Extrasolar, Late Heavy Bombardments…
Numerous nearby FGK dwarfs possess discs of debris generated by collisions among comets. Here we fit the levels of dusty excess observed by Spitzer at 70$\umu$m and show that they form a rather smooth distribution. Taking into account the…
Space weather refers to dynamic conditions on the Sun and in the space environment of the Earth, which are often driven by solar eruptions and their subsequent interplanetary disturbances. It has been unclear how an extreme space weather…
Since the 1980's it has been becoming increasingly clear that the Solar System's irregular satellites are collisionally evolved. We derive a general model for the collisional evolution of an irregular satellite swarm and apply it to the…
While most of the known debris discs present cold dust at tens of AU, a few young systems exhibit hot dust analogous to the Zodiacal dust. $\eta$ Corvi is particularly interesting as it is old and it has both, with its hot dust…
Based on cosmological rates, it is probable that at least once in the last Gy the Earth has been irradiated by a gamma-ray burst in our Galaxy from within 2 kpc. Using a two-dimensional atmospheric model we have performed the first…
Nearby, Galactic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may affect the terrestrial biota if their radiation is beamed towards the Earth. Compact stellar binary mergers are possible central engines of short GRBs and their rate could be boosted in globular…
Determining planetary habitability is a complex matter, as the interplay between a planet's physical and atmospheric properties with stellar insolation has to be studied in a self consistent manner. Standardized atmospheric models for…
The frequency of Galactic stellar encounters the Solar system experienced depends on the local density and velocity dispersion along the orbit of the Sun in the Milky Way galaxy. We aim at determining the effect of the radial migration of…
HR 8799 is a four planet system that also hosts a debris disk. By numerically integrating both planets and a planetesimal disk, we find interactions between an exterior planetesimal disk and the planets can influence the lifetime of the…
The architecture of exoplanetary systems is often different from the solar system, with some exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. In analogy to interactions between stars in…
The solar system has changed dramatically since its birth, and so did our understanding of it. A considerable research effort has been invested in the past decade in an attempt to reconstruct the solar system history, including the earliest…
We review how tides may impact the habitability of terrestrial-like planets. If such planets form around low-mass stars, then planets in the circumstellar habitable zone will be close enough to their host stars to experience strong tidal…
Mercury, due to its close location to the Sun, is surrounded by an environment whose conditions may be considered as "extreme" in the entire Solar System. Both solar wind and radiation are stronger with respect to other Solar System bodies,…
The stars that populate the solar neighbourhood were formed in stellar clusters. Through N-body simulations of these clusters, we measure the rate of close encounters between stars. By monitoring the interaction histories of each star, we…
A planet orbiting in the "habitable zone" of our closest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, has recently been discovered, and the next natural question is whether or not Proxima b is "habitable". Stellar winds are likely a source of…
As of 2025, over 6000 planets are known to orbit stars other than our Sun. We can measure their sizes and orbital periods, infer their masses and temperatures, and constrain their compositions. Based on these data, about 1% of extrasolar…
A planet having protective ozone within the collimated beam of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) may suffer ozone depletion, potentially causing a mass extinction event to existing life on a planet's surface and oceans. We model the dangers of long…
The Alpha Centauri AB system is an attractive one for radial velocity observations to detect potential exoplanets. The high metallicity of both Alpha Centauri A and B suggest that they could have possessed circumstellar discs capable of…
With N-body simulations of a planetary system with an asteroid belt we investigate how the asteroid impact rate on the Earth is affected by the architecture of the planetary system. We find that the $\nu_6$ secular resonance plays an…
We study how close-in systems such as those detected by Kepler are affected by the dynamics of bodies in the outer system. We consider two scenarios: outer systems of giant planets potentially unstable to planet--planet scattering, and wide…