Related papers: A pre-Caloris synchronous rotation for Mercury
One major objective of MESSENGER and BepiColombo spatial missions is to accurately measure Mercury's rotation and its obliquity in order to obtain constraints on internal structure of the planet. Which is the obliquity's dynamical behavior…
Rocky planets orbiting M-dwarf stars in the habitable zone tend to be driven to synchronous rotation by tidal dissipation, potentially causing difficulties for maintaining a habitable climate on the planet. However, the planet may be…
The richness of dynamical behavior exhibited by the rotational states of various solar system objects has driven significant advances in the theoretical understanding of their evolutionary histories. An important factor that determines…
Multi-planet systems detected until now are in most cases characterized by hot-Jupiters close to their central star as well as high eccentricities. As a consequence, from a dynamical point of view, compact multi-planetary systems form a…
We analyze radio tracking data obtained during 1311 orbits of the MESSENGER spacecraft in the period March 2011 to April 2014. A least-squares minimization of the residuals between observed and computed values of two-way range and Doppler…
We present a comprehensive statistical study of the radial evolution of solar wind turbulence near Mercury's orbit using long-term magnetic field measurements from the MESSENGER mission. Owing to Mercury's highly elliptical orbit and the…
We study the establishment of three-planet resonances -similar to the Laplace resonance in the Galilean satellites- and their effects on the mutual inclinations of the orbital planes of the planets, assuming that the latter undergo…
The equilibrium rotation of tidally evolved "Earth-like" extra-solar planets is often assumed to be synchronous with their orbital mean motion. The same assumption persisted for Mercury and Venus until radar observations revealed their true…
Planetary migration is a crucial stage in the early solar system, explaining many observational phenomena and providing constraints on details related to the solar system's origins. This paper aims to investigate the acceleration during…
Mean motion resonances are a common feature of both our own Solar System and of extrasolar planetary systems. Bodies can be trapped in resonance when their orbital semi-major axes change, for instance when they migrate through a…
Most multi-planetary systems are characterized by hot-Jupiters close to their central star, moving on eccentric orbits. From a dynamical point of view, compact multi-planetary systems form a specific class of the general N-body problem…
The spin-rotation of a planet arises from the accretion of angular momentum during its formation, but the details of this process are still unclear. In the solar system, the equatorial rotation velocities and spin angular momentum of the…
Recent observations of Kepler multi-planet systems have revealed a number of systems with planets very close to second-order mean motion resonances (MMRs, with period ratio $1:3$, $3:5$, etc.) We present an analytic study of resonance…
One longstanding problem for the potential habitability of planets within M dwarf systems is their likelihood to be tidally locked in a synchronously rotating spin state. This problem thus far has largely been addressed only by considering…
We describe the current state of knowledge about Mercury's interior structure. We review the available observational constraints, including mass, size, density, gravity field, spin state, composition, and tidal response. These data enable…
We consider topological configurations of the magnetically coupled spinning stellar binaries (e.g., merging neutron stars or interacting star-planet systems). We discuss conditions when the stellar spins and the orbital motion nearly…
We propose a semianalytical method to compute the strengths on each of the three massive bodies participating in a three body mean motion resonance (3BR). Applying this method we explore the dependence of the strength on the masses, the…
Planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars are often assumed to be in a state of tidally synchronized rotation, which would considerably affect their putative habitability. Although thermal tides cause Venus to rotate retrogradely,…
We present a mechanism related to the migration of giant protoplanets embedded in a protoplanetary disc whereby a giant protoplanet is caught up, before having migrated all the way to the central star, by a lighter outer giant protoplanet.…
Many extrasolar planetary systems containing multiple super-Earths have been discovered. N-body simulations taking into account standard type-I planetary migration suggest that protoplanets are captured into mean-motion resonant orbits near…