Related papers: The Origin of the Solar System
Studying exoplanets with their parent stars is crucial to understand their population, formation and history. We review some of the key questions regarding their evolution with particular emphasis on giant gaseous exoplanets orbiting close…
Astronomy is at times a science of unexpected discovery. When it is, and if we are lucky, new intellectual territories emerge to challenge our views of the cosmos. The recent indirect detections using high-precision Doppler spectroscopy of…
The discovery of Sedna places new constraints on the origin and evolution of our solar system. Here we investigate the possibility that a close encounter with another star produced the observed edge of the Kuiper belt, at roughly 50 AU, and…
Exoplanets, short for `extra solar planets', are planets outside our solar system. They are objects with masses less than around 15 Jupiter-masses that orbit stars other than the Sun. They are small enough so they can not burn deuterium in…
Complex organics are now commonly found in meteorites, comets, asteroids, planetary satellites, and interplanetary dust particles. The chemical composition and possible origin of these organics are presented. Specifically, we discuss the…
In this chapter we review the astrophysical origins of Earth's carbon, starting from the products of the Big Bang and culminating with the Earth's formation. We review the measured compositions of different primitive objects including…
From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short-period exoplanets pose a severe puzzle to theories of planet formation and orbital evolution. By far most of the planets known beyond the…
We explore two ways in which objects of planetary masses can form. One is in disk systems like the solar system. The other is in dense clusters where stars and brown dwarfs form. We do not yet have the instrumental accuracy to detect…
The relationship between stars and planets provides important information for understanding the interior composition, mineralogy, and overall classification of small planets (R $\lesssim$ 3.5R$_{\oplus}$). Since stars and planets are formed…
Exocomets are small bodies releasing gas and dust which orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first inferred from the detection of variable absorption features in stellar spectra in the late 1980s using spectroscopy. More…
Since the formulation of the problem by Newton, and during three centuries, astronomers and mathematicians have sought to demonstrate the stability of the Solar System. Thanks to the numerical experiments of the last two decades, we know…
Doppler spectroscopy has detected 136 planets around nearby stars. A major puzzle is why their orbits are highly eccentric, while all planets in our Solar System are on nearly circular orbits, as expected if they formed by accretion…
The goal of this chapter is to review hypotheses for the origin of the Pluto system in light of observational constraints that have been considerably refined over the 85-year interval between the discovery of Pluto and its exploration by…
The discovery of almost 2000 exoplanets has revealed an unexpectedly diverse planet population. Observations to date have shown that our Solar System is certainly not representative of the general population of planets in our Milky Way. The…
The field of exoplanets is quickly expanding from just the detection of new planets and the measurement of their most basic parameters, such as mass, radius and orbital configuration, to the first measurements of their atmospheric…
Meteorites are a remarkable resource. They capture the imagination of people worldwide with their spectacular entry through Earth's atmosphere as fireballs, and their exotic character of being pieces of other worlds. Scientifically, they…
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on…
With the same general purposes as Part I of this monograph, we analyze here major events in the history of the Earth, such as the formation of the Earth itself, the origin of life, the great glaciations and the mass extinctions of species,…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
Over the last two decades, the discovery of exoplanets has fundamentally changed our perception of the universe and humanity's place within it. Recent work indicates that a solar system's X-ray and high energy particle environment is of…