Related papers: Origin of craters on Phoebe: comparison with Cassi…
Hubble Space Telescope observations of Uranus- and Neptune-crossing object (65489) Ceto/Phorcys (provisionally designated 2003 FX128) reveal it to be a close binary system. The mutual orbit has a period of 9.554 +/- 0.011 days and a…
The origin of the regular satellites ties directly to planetary formation in that the satellites form in gas and dust disks around the giant planets and may be viewed as mini-solar systems, involving a number of closely related underlying…
We find evidence that crater ejecta play an important role in the small crater populations on the Saturnian satellites, and more broadly, on cratered surfaces throughout the Solar System. We measure crater populations in Cassini images of…
Observations have shown that planets similar to Neptune are rarely found orbiting Sun-like stars with periods up to ~4 days, defining the so-called Neptune desert region. Therefore, the detection of each individual planet in this region…
We present astrometric observations of the Saturnian satellites Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea from Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) narrow-angle camera (NAC) images. Image sequences were designed to observe mutual…
The problem of origin of outer irregular satellites of large planets is considered. The capture way of their origin most probable, however there is not detail theory. There are a number of irregular satellites, discovered in recent time. It…
Spokes are localized clouds of fine particles that appear over the outer part of Saturn's B ring. Over the course of the Cassini Mission, the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) obtained over 20,000 images of the outer B ring, providing the…
Saturn's moon Iapetus, which is in synchronous rotation, is covered by an optically dark material mainly on its leading side, while its trailing side is significantly brighter. Because longer wavelengths probe deeper into the subsurface,…
Saturns rings are known to show remarkable real time variability in their structure. Many of which can be associated to interactions with nearby moons and moonlets. Possibly the most interesting and dynamic place in the rings, probably in…
Radial-velocity observations of Kepler candidates obtained with the SOPHIE and HARPS-N spectrographs have permitted unveiling the nature of the five giant planets Kepler-41b, Kepler-43b, Kepler-44b, Kepler-74b, and Kepler-75b, the massive…
We investigate the conditions under which the regular satellites of Jupiter and Saturn formed. The final stage of giant planet accretion is thought to occur slowly over a relatively long, 10 Myr, timescale. Gas accretion during this stage,…
We present thermal model fits for 11 Jovian and 3 Saturnian irregular satellites based on measurements from the WISE/NEOWISE dataset. Our fits confirm spacecraft-measured diameters for the objects with in situ observations (Himalia and…
Using the cumulative catalog of planets detected by the NASA Kepler mission, we reconstruct the intrinsic occurrence of Earth- to Neptune-size (1 - 4$R_{\oplus}$) planets and their distributions with radius and orbital period. We analyze…
Debris disks around young main-sequence stars often have gaps and cavities which for a long time have been interpreted as possibly being caused by planets. In recent years, several giant planet discoveries have been made in systems hosting…
Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) mounted on the Cassini spacecraft has taken a lot of images, which provides an important source of high-precision astrometry of some planets and satellites. However, some of these images are degraded by…
I report the results of a new set of calculations for the gravitational contraction of the proto-solar cloud to quantify the idea that Titan may be a captured moon of Saturn (Prentice 1981, 1984). It is proposed that Titan initially…
Planet formation occurs around a wide range of stellar masses and stellar system architectures. An improved understanding of the formation process can be achieved by studying it across the full parameter space, particularly toward the…
WASP-127b is one of the puffiest exoplanets found to date, with a mass only $3.4$ Neptune masses, but a radius larger than Jupiter. It is also located at the border of the Neptune desert, which describes the lack of highly-irradiated…
Tidal interactions between Saturn and its satellites play a crucial role in both the orbital migration of the satellites and the heating of their interiors. Therefore constraining the tidal dissipation of Saturn (here the ratio k2/Q) opens…
The longevity of Cassini's exploration of Saturn's atmosphere (a third of a Saturnian year) means that we have been able to track the seasonal evolution of atmospheric temperatures, chemistry and cloud opacity over almost every season, from…