Related papers: Galactic planetary science
Most planetary systems -- including our own -- are born within stellar clusters, where interactions with neighboring stars can help shape the system architecture. This paper develops an orbit-averaged formalism to characterize the cluster's…
What is habitability? Can we quantify it? What do we mean under the term habitable or potentially habitable planet? With estimates of the number of planets in our Galaxy alone running into billions, possibly a number greater than the number…
The study of extra-solar planetary systems has emerged as a new discipline of observational astronomy in the past few years with the discovery of a number of extra-solar planets. The properties of most of these extra-solar planets were not…
A survey of currently known planet-hosting stars indicates that approximately 25% of extrasolar planetary systems are within dual-star environments. Several of these systems contain stellar companions on moderately close orbits, implying…
The study of our Solar System -- its formation, evolution, and long-term stability -- has been ongoing for centuries and is now a standard part of scientific education. While the formation of other Solar-like exoplanetary systems is…
The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding…
The first exploration of Pluto was motivated by (i) the many intriguing aspects of this body, its atmosphere, and its giant impact binary-planet formation; as well as (ii) the scientific desire to initiate the reconnaissance of the…
Astrometry as a technique has so far proved of limited utility when employed as either a follow-up tool or to independently search for planetary mass companions orbiting nearby stars. However, this is bound to change during the next decade.…
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…
Most known extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been discovered using the radial velocity$^{\bf 1,2}$ or transit$^{\bf 3}$ methods. Both are biased towards planets that are relatively close to their parent stars, and studies find that…
We investigated the underlying architecture of planetary systems by deriving the distribution of planet multiplicity (number of planets) and the distribution of orbital inclinations based on the sample of planet candidates discovered by the…
Cosmic magnetic fields are an integral component of the interstellar medium (ISM), having influence on scales ranging from star formation to galactic dynamics. While observations of external galaxies offer a `birds-eye-view' of magnetic…
The primary difficulty with using transits to discover extrasolar planets is the low probability a planet has of transiting its parent star. One way of overcoming this difficulty is to search for transits in dense stellar fields, such as…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
Recent ground and space-based observations show that stars with multiple planets are common in the galaxy. Most of these observational methods are biased toward detecting large planets near to their host stars. Because of these…
Our galaxy is full with planets. We now know that planets and planetary systems are diverse and come with different sizes, masses and compositions, as well as various orbital architectures. Although there has been great progress in…
With planets orbiting stars, a planetary mass function should not be seen as a low-mass extension of the stellar mass function, but a proper formalism needs to take care of the fact that the statistical properties of planet populations are…
Here, we present a simple solution to problems that have plagued (extra)"galactic" astronomers and cosmologists over the last century. We show that "galaxy" formation, dark matter, and the tension in the expansion of the universe can all be…
One of the most surprising discoveries of extrasolar planets is the detection of planets in moderately close binary star systems. The Jovian-type planets in the two binaries of Gamma Cephei and GJ 86 have brought to the forefront questions…
The solar system has changed dramatically since its birth, and so did our understanding of it. A considerable research effort has been invested in the past decade in an attempt to reconstruct the solar system history, including the earliest…