Related papers: The Potato Radius: a Lower Minimum Size for Dwarf …
We analytically work out the long-term variations caused on the motion of a planet orbiting a star by a very distant, pointlike massive object X. Apart from the semi-major axis a, all the other Keplerian osculating orbital elements…
Stars form in the Galaxy with a wide range in mass. If the mass is below 7% of the Sun's, then the object does not become hot enough for stable hydrogen burning. These substellar objects are called brown dwarfs. Maps of the sky at infrared…
We explore the possibility that extended disks, such as that recently discovered in M31, are the result of a single dwarf (10^9--10^10 Msun) satellite merger. We carry out N-body simulations of dwarf NFW halos with embedded spheriodal…
Asteroids are frequently colliding with small projectiles. Although each individual small collision is not very important, their cumulative effect can substantially change topography and also the overall shape of an asteroid. We run…
The increase in spin frequency as the burning atmospheres of TypeI X-ray bursts cool provides a strong constraint on the radius of the underlying neutron star. If the change in spin frequency is due to a change in the thickness of the…
Kuiper Belt objects with absolute magnitude less than 3 (radius $\gtrsim$500 km), the dwarf planets, have a range of different ice/rock ratios, and are more rock-rich than their smaller counterparts. Many of these objects have moons, which…
Transitional disks represent a short stage of the evolution of circumstellar material. Studies of dust grains in these objects can provide pivotal information on the mechanisms of planet formation. Dissimilarities in the spatial…
Transition type dwarf galaxies are thought to be systems undergoing the process of transformation from a star-forming into a passively evolving dwarf, which makes them particularly suitable to study evolutionary processes driving the…
The string inspired higher dimensional theories suggest modification of Newton's law at submillimeter length scales. Inter-particle distances in white dwarf and neutron stars are $10^{-10} cms$ and $10^{-13} cms$ respectively, and…
A widely-held assumption is that each single white dwarf containing observable rocky debris requires the presence of at least one terrestrial or giant planet to have gravitationally perturbed the progenitor of the debris into the star.…
Recent observations have confirmed the existence of rings around minor bodies in the outer Solar System. These objects may possess satellites as well. Here we analytically investigate the interaction between such rings and satellites. We…
The measured rates of period change, $\dot{P}$, in the signals of pulsating white dwarf stars are often interpreted as direct detections of structural changes from secular cooling. Due to the intrinsic nature of this quantity, $\dot{P}$…
The shape of the two gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, is determined primarily by their rotation rate, and interior density distribution. It is also affected by their zonal winds, causing an anomaly of O(10 km) at low latitudes. However,…
In a previous paper by the author was proposed a new metric for the gravitational field of a thin rotating disk physically different from the Kerr metric. The metric is admissible for any angular momentum of the disk. As demonstrated in the…
In 2029, the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis approaches the Earth within six Earth radii. This opportunity is one of the rarest natural experiments that we can use to better characterize a small body through telescopic observations and…
A density disturbance in a system of gravitating mass, induced by a moving selected body gives rise to a dynamical screening of Newtonian potential of this body. When applied to the solar planetary system it means that as a result of the…
Galaxy morphologies in clusters have undergone a remarkable transition over the past several billion years. Distant clusters at $z \sim 0.4$ are filled with small spiral galaxies, many of which are disturbed and show evidence of multiple…
We investigated the probability that an inelastic collision of planetesimals within the Hill sphere of the Jovian planets could explain the presence and orbits of observed irregular satellites. Capture of satellites via this mechanism is…
Deflecting an asteroid from an Earth impact trajectory requires only small velocity changes, typically of the order of microns per second, if done many years ahead of time. For this, a highly precise method of determining the need,…
We describe analytical and numerical collisional evolution calculations for the size distribution of icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt. For a wide range of bulk properties, initial masses, and orbital parameters, our results yield power-law…