Related papers: The activity of Main Belt comets
The non-resonant Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) between the 3:2 and 2:1 Neptunian mean motion resonances can be largely divided between a cold classical belt (CCB) and a hot classical belt (HCB). A notable difference between these two…
Cometary activity is a manifestation of sublimation-driven processes at the surface of nuclei. However, cometary outbursts may arise from other processes that are not necessarily driven by volatiles. In order to fully understand nuclear…
Our current knowledge of the dynamical structure of the Kuiper Belt is reviewed here. Numerical results on long term orbital evolution and dynamical mechanisms underlying the transport of objects out of the Kuiper Belt are discussed.…
The orbital regime of a terrestrial planet plays a significant role in shaping its atmospheric dynamics, climate, and hence potential habitability. The orbit is also likely to play a role in shaping the response of a planetary atmosphere to…
Comet P/2010A2 LINEAR is a good candidate for membership with the Main Belt Comet family. It was observed with several telescopes (ESO NTT, La Silla; Gemini North, Mauna Kea; UH 2.2m, Mauna Kea) from 14 Jan. until 19 Feb. 2010 in order to…
Impactors of different types and sizes can produce a final crater of the same diameter on a planet under certain conditions. We derive the condition for such "isocrater impacts" from scaling laws, as well as relations that describe how the…
Dust jets, i.e. fuzzy collimated streams of cometary material arising from the nucleus, have been observed in-situ on all comets since the Giotto mission flew by comet 1P/Halley in 1986. Yet their formation mechanism remains unknown.…
We present an observational and dynamical study of newly discovered main-belt comet 313P/Gibbs. We find that the object is clearly active both in observations obtained in 2014 and in precovery observations obtained in 2003 by the Sloan…
Interstellar comets offer direct samples of volatiles from distant protoplanetary disks. 2I/Borisov is the first notably active interstellar comet discovered in our solar system[1]. Comets are condensed samples of the gas, ice, and dust…
Abridged. We have performed an ecliptic survey of the Kuiper belt, with an areal coverage of 8.9 square degrees to a 50% limiting magnitude of r'=24.7, and have detected 88 Kuiper belt objects, roughly half of which received follow-up one…
High electronic excitations in radiation of metallic targets with swift heavy ion beams at the coulomb barrier play a dominant role in the damaging processes of some metals. The inelastic thermal spike model was developed to describe tracks…
Jewitt et al. (2014) recently reported that main belt comet P/2013 R3 experienced a breakup, probably due to rotational disruption, with its components separating on mutually hyperbolic orbits. We propose a technique for constraining…
Interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) are major drivers of heliospheric variability and can produce prolonged disturbances near Earth. Understanding their thermodynamic evolution is crucial for assessing their heat budget and…
We study the impactor flux and cratering on Ceres and Vesta caused by the collisional and dynamical evolution of the asteroid Main Belt. We develop a statistical code based on a well-tested model for the simultaneous evolution of the Main…
We numerically integrated the orbits of 1458 particles in the region of the classical Kuiper Belt (41 AU < a < 47 AU) to explore the role of dynamical instabilities in sculpting the inclination distribution of the classical Kuiper Belt…
There is an unceasing incoming flux of extraterrestrial materials reaching the Earth's atmosphere. Some of these objects produce luminous columns when they ablate during the hypersonic encounter with air molecules. A few fireballs occur…
When comet nuclei approach the Sun, the increasing energy flux through the surface layers leads to sublimation of the underlying ices and subsequent outgassing that promotes the observed emission of gas and dust. The ejection of dust…
V-type asteroids, characterized by two absorption bands at 1.0 and 2.0 $\mu m$, are usually thought to be portions of the crust of differentiated or partially differentiated bodies. Most V-type asteroids are found in the inner main belt and…
The asteroid belt is characterized by an extreme low total mass of material on dynamically excited orbits. The Nice Model explains many peculiar qualities of the solar system, including the belt's excited state, by invoking an orbital…
Via joint analysis of a calibrated telescopic survey, which found scattering Kuiper Belt objects, and models of their expected orbital distribution, we measure the form of the scattering object's size distribution. Ruling out a single…