Related papers: Dynamics, Origin, and Activation of Main Belt Come…

Mean motion resonances (MMRs) can lead either to chaotic or regular motion. We report on a numerical experiment showing that even in one of the most chaotic regions of the Solar System - the region of the giant planets, there are numerous…

Understanding the origin of comets requires knowledge of how the Solar System formed from a cloud of dust and gas 4.567 Gyr ago. Here, a review is presented of how the remnants of this formation process, meteorites and to a lesser extent…

The organization of the orbits of most minor bodies in the Solar system seems to follow random patterns, the result of billions of years of chaotic dynamical evolution. Much as heterogeneous orbital behaviour is ubiquitous, dynamically…

Most main-belt asteroids are primitive rock and metal bodies in orbit about the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Disruption, through high velocity collisions or rotational spin-up, is believed to be the primary mechanism for the production and…

Molecular Cloud Complexes (MCCs) are highly structured and ``turbulent''. Observational evidence suggests that MCCs are dynamically dominated systems, rather than quasi-equilibrium entities. The observed structure is more likely a…

Radar and spacecraft observations show the permanently shadowed regions around Mercury's North Pole to contain water ice and complex organic material. One possible source of this material are impacts by interplanetary dust particles (IDPs),…

Mean motion resonances play a fundamental role in the dynamics of the small bodies of the Solar System. The last decades of the 20th century gave us a detailed description of the dynamics as well as the process of capture of small bodies in…

Recently published space-based observations of main-belt asteroids with the AKARI telescope provide a full description of the 3 {\mu}m band, related to the presence of OH bearing minerals. Here, we use laboratory spectra of carbonaceous…

The near-Earth asteroid population suggests the existence of an inner Main Belt source of asteroids that belongs to the spectroscopic X-complex and has moderate albedos. The identification of such a source has been lacking so far. We argue…

The past decade has brought major improvements in large-scale asteroid discovery and characterization with over half a million known asteroids and over 100,000 with some measurement of physical characterization. This explosion of data has…

Using a fully autonomous spacecraft - Bering - we propose to detect and study sub-km asteroids from an orbit within the asteroid Main Belt. The main purpose of the proposed Bering mission is to detect a statistically significant sample of…

This is an overview of recent research on meteors and the parent bodies from which they are produced. While many meteor showers result from material ejected by comets, two out of the three strongest annual showers (the Geminids and the…

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the eruptions of magnetised plasma from the Sun and are considered the main driver of adverse space weather events. Hence, undrstanding its formation process, particularly the magnetic topology, is critical…

Main Belt Comets are a recently identified population of minor bodies with stable asteroid-like orbits but cometary appearances. Sublimation of water ice is the most likely mechanism for their recurrent activity (i.e. dust tails and dust…

The peculiar object P/2010 A2 was discovered by the LINEAR near-Earth asteroid survey in January 2010 and given a cometary designation due to the presence of a trail of material, although there was no central condensation or coma. The…

It is now well-established that a dark, compact object (DCO), very likely a massive black hole (MBH) of around four million solar masses is lurking at the centre of the Milky Way. While a consensus is emerging about the origin and growth of…

Many debris discs reveal a two-component structure, with a cold outer and a warm inner component. While the former are likely massive analogues of the Kuiper belt, the origin of the latter is still a matter of debate. In this work we…

The diverse isotopic anomalies of meteorites demonstrate that the protoplanetary disk was composed of components from different stellar sources, which mixed in the disk and formed the planetary bodies. However, the origin of the accretion…

This work focuses on the study of the aqueous alteration process which acted in the main belt and produced hydrated minerals on the altered asteroids. The aqueous alteration is particularly important for unraveling the processes occurring…

We present the results of "snapshot" numerical integrations of test particles representing comet-like and asteroid-like objects in the inner solar system aimed at investigating the short-term dynamical evolution of objects close to the…