Related papers: Chaotic exchange of solid material between planeta…
An instability among the giant planets' orbits can match many aspects of the Solar System's current orbital architecture. We explore the possibility that this dynamical instability was triggered by the close passage of a star or substellar…
Reconstructions of the paleoclimate indicate that ancient climatic fluctuations on Earth are often correlated with variations in its orbital elements. However, the chaos inherent in the solar system's orbital evolution prevents numerical…
Most massive stars are believed to be born in close binary systems where they can exchange mass, which impacts the evolution of both binary components. Their evolution is of great interest in the search for the progenitors of gravitational…
We investigate whether it is possible that viable microbes could have been transported to Earth from the planets in extra-solar systems by means of natural vehicles such as ejecta expelled by comet or asteroid impacts on such planets. The…
We consider the formation and migration of protoplanetary embryos in disks around the stars in tight binary systems (separations ~ 20 AU. In such systems, the initial stages of runaway embryo formation are expected to only take place within…
The proposition that life can spread from one planetary system to another (interstellar panspermia) has a long history, but this hypothesis is difficult to test through observations. We develop a mathematical model that takes parameters…
Recently, a 30-cm object was discovered to graze the Earth's atmosphere and shift into a Jupiter-crossing orbit. We use the related survey parameters to calibrate the total number of such objects. The number of objects that could have…
The orbits of small bodies in the outer solar system are particularly sensitive to gravitational perturbations, including stellar flybys. Stellar clusters, with low velocity dispersions and high number densities, can be the source of strong…
The recent years have witnessed a carnival of discoveries in the Outer Solar System. Here we provide evidence from numerical simulations of orbital stability to suggest the possible existence of two long lived belts of primordial…
In their model for the origin of the parent bodies of iron meteorites, Bottke et al proposed differentiated planetesimals that were formed in the region of 1-2 AU during the first 1.5 Myr, as the parent bodies, and suggested that these…
The Panspermia hypothesis posits that either life's building blocks (molecular Panspermia) or life itself (organism-based Panspermia) may have been interplanetary transferred to facilitate the Origins of Life (OoL) on a given planet,…
A large fraction of stars are formed in dense clusters. In the cluster, close encounters between stars at distances less than 100 au are common. It has been shown that during close encounters planets can transfer between stars. Such…
The discovery of planetary systems outside of the solar system has challenged some of the tenets of planetary formation. Among the difficult-to-explain observations, are systems with a giant planet orbiting a very-low mass star, such as the…
We present a simple model for estimating the probability of interplanetary panspermia in the recently discovered system of seven planets orbiting the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, and find that panspermia is potentially orders of…
The motion of bodies ejected from the Earth was studied, and the probabilities of collisions of such bodies with the present terrestrial planets were calculated. The dependences of these probabilities on velocities, angles and points of…
A large disruption in the main asteroid belt can cause a large flux, an "asteroid shower", on the terrestrial planets. We quantitatively examine the hypothesis that such an event was the cause of the lunar late heavy bombardment (LHB). We…
The orbital distribution of trans-Neptunian objects provides strong evidence for the radial migration of Neptune. The outer planets' orbits are thought to have become unstable during the early stages with Jupiter having scattering…
The architecture and evolution of planetary systems are shaped in part by stellar flybys. Within this context, we look at stellar encounters which are too weak to immediately destabilize a planetary system but are nevertheless strong enough…
The population of Earth-impacting meteoroids and its size-dependent orbital elements are key to understanding the origin of meteorites and informing on planetary defence efforts. Outstanding questions include the role of collisions in…
As part of the national scientific network 'Pathways to Habitable Worlds' the delivery of water onto terrestrial planets is a key question since water is essential for the development of life as we know it. After summarizing the state of…