Related papers: Small particles in Pluto's environment: effects of…
Simple theoretical calculations have suggested that small body impacts onto Pluto's newly discovered small satellites, Nix and Hydra, are capable of generating time-variable rings or dust sheets in the Pluto system. Using HST/ACS data…
The small satellites of the Pluto system (Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra) have very low surface escape velocities, and impacts should therefore eject a large amount of material from their surfaces. We show that most of this material then…
Motivated by the New Horizons mission, we consider how Pluto's small satellites -- currently Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra -- grow in debris from the giant impact that forms the Pluto-Charon binary. After the impact, Pluto and Charon…
Particles of various sizes can exist around Mars. The orbits of large particles are mainly governed by Martian gravity, while those of small particles could be significantly affected by non-gravitational forces. Many of the previous studies…
We consider the formation of satellites around the Pluto-Charon binary. An early collision between the two partners likely produced the binary and a narrow ring of debris, out of which arose the moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. How the…
Considering effects of tidal plus centrifugal stress acting on icy-rocks and the tensile strength thereof, icy-rocks being in the density range (1-2.4) g cm-3 which had come into existence as collisional ejecta (debris) in the vicinity of…
The irregular satellites of Jupiter produce dust particles through the impact of interplanetary micrometeoroids. In this paper, the dynamics of these particles is studied by both high-accuracy numerical simulation and analytical theory, in…
The orbital evolution of asteroidal, trans-Neptunian, and cometary dust particles under the gravitational influence of planets, the Poynting-Robertson drag, radiation pressure, and solar wind drag was integrated. Results of our runs were…
The New Horizons spacecraft carried three instruments that measured the space environment near Pluto as it flew by on 14 July 2015. The Solar Wind Around Pluto instrument revealed an interaction region confined sunward of Pluto to within…
The New Horizons mission has provided resolved measurements of Pluto's moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. All four are small, with equivalent spherical diameters of $\approx$40 km for Nix and Hydra and ~10 km for Styx and Kerberos. They…
We present a new orbit and mass solution for the four small satellites of Pluto: Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. We have reanalyzed all available observations of the Pluto system obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) from 2005 to…
Pluto's recently discovered minor moons, Nix and Hydra, have almost circular orbits, and are nearly coplanar with Charon, Pluto's major moon. This is surprising because tidal interactions with Pluto are too weak to damp their…
We investigated the millennial-scale evolution of narrow innermost rings composed of pebble-sized to sub-millimeter particles around the four known ring-bearing small bodies Chiron, Chariklo, Quaoar, and Haumea. Using a GPU-accelerated…
Using a suite of numerical calculations, we consider the long-term evolution of circumbinary debris from the Pluto-Charon giant impact. Initially, these solids have large eccentricity and pericenters near Charon's orbit. On time scales of…
Uranus and Saturn share similarities in terms of their atmospheric composition, which is primarily made up of hydrogen and helium, as well as their ring systems. Uranus has 13 known rings, which are divided into narrow main rings, dusty…
Many asteroids show indications they have undergone impacts with meteoroid particles having radii between 0.01 m and 1 m. During such impacts, small dust grains will be ejected at the impact site. The possibility of these dust grains (with…
A four-body orbit solution for the Pluto system yields GM values of 870.3 +/- 3.7, 101.4 +/- 2.8, 0.039 +/- 0.034, and 0.021 +/- 0.042 km3 sec-2 for Pluto, Charon, Nix, and Hydra, respectively. Assuming a Charon-like density of 1.63 gm…
The origin of rings around giant planets remains elusive. Saturn's rings are massive and made of 90-95% of water ice. In contrast, the much less massive rings of Uranus and Neptune are dark and likely to have higher rock fraction. Here we…
Spacecraft and ground-based observations show that the main rings of Saturn lack particles larger than 10 m. Tidal or collisional destruction of satellites/comets have been proposed as the origin of the main rings; however, Saturn's tide…
Context: Rings around giant planets are a common feature of the solar system. Even though solar radiation pressure is known to destabilize rings by exciting the orbital eccentricity of its particles, the Centaur Chariklo (and possibly…