Related papers: Stable and habitable systems with two giant planet…
We examine the effects that planetary encounters have on the moon systems of ejected gas giant planets. We conduct a suite of numerical simulations of planetary systems containing three Jupiter-mass planets (with the innermost planet at 3…
The dynamical structure of the Solar System can be explained by a period of orbital instability experienced by the giant planets. While a late instability was originally proposed to explain the Late Heavy Bombardment, recent work favors an…
Earth-scale planets in the classical habitable zone (HZ) are more likely to be habitable if they possess active geophysics. Without a constant internal energy source, planets cool as they age, eventually terminating tectonic activity and…
We re-analyze the global orbital architecture and dynamical stability of the $\mu$ Arae planetary system. We have updated the best-fit elements and minimal masses of the planets based on literature radial velocity (RV) measurements, now…
Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital…
In the Solar system the planets' compositions vary with orbital distance, with rocky planets in close orbits and lower-density gas giants in wider orbits. The detection of close-in giant planets around other stars was the first clue that…
Given the tendency of planets to form in multiples, and the observational evidence in support of the existence of potential planet-hosting stars in binaries or clusters, it is expected that extrasolar terrestrial planes are more likely to…
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…
Instabilities and strong dynamical interactions between several giant planets have been proposed as a possible explanation for the surprising orbital properties of extrasolar planetary systems. In particular, dynamical instabilities would…
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…
Compact planetary systems with more than two planets can undergo orbital crossings from planet-planet perturbations. The time which the system remains stable without orbital crossings has an exponential dependence on the initial orbital…
The weather layers of the gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, comprise the shallow atmospheric layers that are influenced energetically by a combination of incoming solar radiation and localised latent heating of condensates, as well as…
`Hot jupiters,' giant planets with orbits very close to their parent stars, are thought to form farther away and migrate inward via interactions with a massive gas disk. If a giant planet forms and migrates quickly, the planetesimal…
We study the survival of gas planets around stars with masses in the range 1-5 Msun, as these stars evolve off the Main Sequence. We show that planets with masses smaller than one Jupiter mass do not survive the Planetary Nebula phase if…
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…
A star will become brighter and brighter with stellar evolution, and the distance of its habitable zone will become farther and farther. Some planets outside the habitable zone of a host star during the main sequence phase may enter the…
The aim of our study is to investigate the possibility of habitable moons orbiting the giant planet HD 23079b, a Jupiter-mass planet, which follows a low-eccentricity orbit in the outer region of HD 23079's habitable zone. We show that HD…
Small planets, 1-4x the size of Earth, are extremely common around Sun-like stars, and surprisingly so, as they are missing in our solar system. Recent detections have yielded enough information about this class of exoplanets to begin…
It is generally accepted today that our solar system has undergone a phase during which the orbits of the giant planets became very unstable. In recent years, many studies have identified traces of this event and have provided reasonable…
We perform numerical simulations to study the secular orbital evolution and dynamical structure in the quintuplet planetary system 55 Cancri with the self-consistent orbital solutions by Fischer and coworkers (2008). In the simulations, we…