Related papers: Are there rings around Pluto?
The Pluto-Charon system has come into sharper focus following the fly by of New Horizons. We use N-body simulations to probe the unique dynamical history of this binary dwarf planet system. We follow the evolution of the debris disc that…
The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence for geologic activity on the surface of Pluto, including extensional tectonic deformation of its water ice bedrock (see Moore et al., 2016). One mechanism that could drive extensional tectonic…
The Solar system beyond Neptune is believed to house a population of small primordial bodies left over from the planet formation process. The region up to heliocentric distance $\sim 50 AU$ (a.k.a. the Kuiper Belt) may be the source of the…
The exploration of the Pluto-Charon system by the New Horizons spacecraft represents the first opportunity to understand the distribution of albedo and other photometric properties of the surfaces of objects in the Solar System's "Third…
The orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) can indicate the existence of an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system. Here, we used N-body computer simulations to investigate the effects of a hypothetical Kuiper Belt planet (KBP) on…
The recent discovery of dense rings around the Centaur Chariklo (and possibly Chiron) reveals that complete dense planetary rings are not only found around Saturn and Uranus, but also around small bodies orbiting in the vicinity of those…
Over the course of the past two decades, observational surveys have unveiled the intricate orbital structure of the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. In addition to a host of readily-predictable orbital…
Many debris discs reveal a two-component structure, with a cold outer and a warm inner component. While the former are likely massive analogues of the Kuiper belt, the origin of the latter is still a matter of debate. In this work we…
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…
We perform hydrodynamical simulations of the accretion of pebbles and rocks onto protoplanets of a few hundred kilometres in radius, including two-way drag force coupling between particles and the protoplanetary disc gas. Particle streams…
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…
Saturns F-ring is a unique, narrow ring that lies (radially) close to the tidally disruptive Roche limit of water ice for Saturn. Significant work has been done that shows it to be one of the most dynamic places in the Solar System.…
The interest in the structure of ice-rich planetary bodies, in particular the differentiation between ice and rock, has grown due to the discovery of Kuiper belt objects and exoplanets. We thus carry out a parameter study for a range of…
Since 2013, dense and narrow rings are known around the small Centaur object Chariklo and the dwarf planet Haumea. Dense material has also been detected around the Centaur Chiron, although its nature is debated. This is the first time ever…
Pluto's first known moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978 (Christy 1978) and has a diameter about half that of Pluto (Buie 1992,Young 1994, Sicardy 2005), which makes it larger relative to its primary than any other moon in the Solar System.…
High-resolution spectra of Pluto in the 1.66 um region, recorded with the VLT/CRIRES instrument in 2008 (2 spectra) and 2012 (5 spectra), are analyzed to constrain the spatial and vertical distribution of methane in Pluto's atmosphere and…
Approach images taken by the LORRI imaging system during the New Horizons spacecraft encounter have been used to determine the mean radii and shapes of Pluto and Charon. The primary observations are limb locations derived using three…
Until 2013, only the giant planets were known to host ring systems. In June 2013, a stellar occulation revealed the presence of narrow and dense rings around Chariklo, a small Centaur object that orbits between Saturn and Uranus. Meanwhile,…
The formation of a circumplanetary disk and accretion of angular momentum onto a protoplanetary system are investigated using 3D hydrodynamical simulations. The local region around a protoplanet in a protoplanetary disk is considered with…
The moniker rubble pile is typically applied to all solar system bodies with Diameter between 200m and 10km - where in this size range there is an abundance of evidence that nearly every object is bound primarily by self-gravity with…