Related papers: Initial Planetesimal Sizes and the Size Distributi…
Gas has been detected in many exoplanetary systems ($>$10 Myr), thought to be released in the destruction of volatile-rich planetesimals orbiting in exo-Kuiper belts. In this letter, we aim to explore whether gas is also expected in the…
We analyze two new sets of coagulation calculations for solid particles orbiting within the terrestrial zone of a solar-type star. In models of collisional cascades, numerical simulations demonstrate that the total mass, the mass in 1 mm…
The orbital evolution and stability of planetary systems with interaction from the belts is studied using the standard phase-plane analysis. In addition to the fixed point which corresponds to the Keplerian orbit, there are other fixed…
Here we measure the absolute magnitude distributions (H-distribution) of the dynamically excited and quiescent (hot and cold) Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), and test if they share the same H-distribution as the Jupiter Trojans. From a…
The surface conditions of terrestrial bodies strongly reflect their geological evolutionary processes and vary among various terrestrial bodies. This diversity is attributed to variations in the timescales of boulder formation through…
Given the large orbital separation and high satellite-to-primary mass ratio of all known Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) binaries, it is important to reassess their stability as bound pairs with respect to several disruptive mechanisms. Besides…
A group of newly observed extreme trans-Neptunian objects exhibit unexpected orbital confinement, characterized by the alignment of orbital angular momentum vectors and apsidal lines. It is proposed that an undiscovered giant planet, named…
Results from the first two years of data from the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) are presented. Stars have been monitored photometrically at 4 Hz or 5 Hz to search for occultations by small (~3 km) Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs).…
We conducted a search for occultations of bright stars by Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) to estimate the density of sub-km KBOs in the sky. We report here the first results of this occultation survey of the outer solar system conducted in June…
We investigate the distribution of encounter velocities and impact angles describing collisions in the habitable zone of the early planetary system. Here we present a catalogue of collision characteristics for a particular mass ratio of the…
As indicated by their special characteristics, the cold classical Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) formed and survived at 42-47 au. Notably, they show a large fraction of equal-size binaries whose formation is probably related to the accretion of…
Almost all of the $>600$ known Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) have been discovered within 50 AU of the Sun. One possible explanation for the observed lack of KBOs beyond 50 AU is that the distant Kuiper belt is dynamically very cold, and thus…
In the framework of the coagulation scenario, kilometre-sized planetesimals form by subsequent collisions of pre-planetesimals of sizes from centimetre to hundreds of metres. Pre-planetesimals are fluffy, porous dust aggregates, which are…
Planetesimal belts are ubiquitous around nearby stars, and their spatial properties hold crucial information for planetesimal and planet formation models. We present resolved dust observations of 74 planetary systems as part of the REsolved…
Early dust evolution in protoplanetary disks is dominated by sticking collisions. However, this initial phase of particle growth faces constraints - notably from destructive encounters. To find the maximum particle size achievable, we…
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…
We use a multiannulus planetesimal accretion code to investigate the growth of icy planets in the outer regions of a planetesimal disk. In a quiescent minimum mass solar nebula, icy planets grow to sizes of 1000--3000 km on a timescale t =…
The Haumea family is currently the only identified collisional family in the Kuiper belt. We numerically simulate the long-term dynamical evolution of the family to estimate a lower limit of the family's age and to assess how the population…
In this paper a simple analytical model for the steady-state evolution of debris disks due to collisions is confronted with Spitzer observations of main sequence A stars. All stars are assumed to have planetesimal belts with a distribution…
We modeled the 3-D structure of the Kuiper Belt dust cloud at four different dust production rates, incorporating both planet-dust interactions and grain-grain collisions using the collisional grooming algorithm. Simulated images of a model…