Related papers: Are there rings around Pluto?
The discovery of Pluto in 1930 presaged the discoveries of both the Kuiper Belt and ice dwarf planets, which are the third class of planets in our solar system. From the 1970s to the 19990s numerous fascinating attributes of the Pluto…
We extend previous results showing that the surfaces of Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects are not primordial and have been moderately to heavily reworked by collisions. Objects smaller than about $r = 2.5$ km have collisional disruption…
Planetary rings are often speculated as being a relatively common attribute of giant planets, partly based on their prevalence within the Solar System. However, their formation and sustainability remain a topic of open discussion, and the…
The dwarf planet Pluto is known to host an extended system of five co-planar satellites. Previous studies have explored the formation and evolution of the system in isolation, neglecting perturbative effects by the Sun. Here we show that…
In this letter we explore the environment of Pluto and Charon in the far infrared with the main aim to identify the signs of any possible dust ring, should it exist in the system. Our study is based on observations performed at 70 um with…
(Abridged) Using an efficient computational approach, we have reconstructed the structure of the dust cloud in the Solar system between 0.5 and 100 AU produced by the Kuiper belt objects. Our simulations offer a 3-D physical model of the…
We searched for dust or debris rings in the Pluto-Charon system before, during, and after the New Horizons encounter. Methodologies included searching for back-scattered light during the approach to Pluto (phase $\sim15^\circ$), in situ…
The Kuiper belt is a population of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. The complex orbital structure of the Kuiper belt, including several categories of objects inside and outside of resonances with Neptune, emerged as a result of…
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…
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…
Pluto has been observed by the New Horizons space probe to have some relatively fresh ice on the old ices covering most of the surface. Pluto was thought to consist of only a rocky core below the ice. Here I show that Pluto can have an iron…
We study the impactor flux and cratering on Pluto and Charon due to the collisional evolution of Plutinos. Plutinos are those trans-Neptunian objects located at 39.5 AU, in the 3:2 mean motion resonance with Neptune. To do this, we develop…
Many of the unusual properties of Pluto's orbit are widely accepted as evidence for the orbital migration of the giant planets in early solar system history. However, some properties remain an enigma. Pluto's long term orbital stability is…
This paper reviews the theory of protostellar debris disks. After a brief introduction to accretion disk physics, I describe coagulation models of planet formation in the outer regions of planetesimal disks. Coagulation models for the…
We consider a scenario where the small satellites of Pluto and Charon grew within a disk of debris from an impact between Charon and a trans-Neptunian Object (TNO). After Charon's orbital motion boosts the debris into a disk-like structure,…
Existence of subsurface oceans on the satellites of the giant planets and Trans-Neptunian objects has been predicted for some time. Oceans on icy worlds exert a considerable influence on the dynamics of the ice-ocean system and, because of…
The Kuiper belt includes tens of thousands of large bodies and millions of smaller objects. The main part of the belt objects is located in the annular zone between 39.4 au and 47.8 au from the Sun, the boundaries correspond to the average…
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has revealed the complex geology of Pluto and Charon. Pluto's encounter hemisphere shows ongoing surface geological activity centered on a vast basin containing a thick layer of volatile ices that appears to…
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…
The vast, deep, volatile-ice-filled basin informally named Sputnik Planum is central to Pluto's geological activity[1,2]. Composed of molecular nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide ices[3], but dominated by N2-ice, this ice layer is…