Related papers: The Active Asteroids
So-called 'dark comets' are small, morphologically inactive near-Earth objects (NEOs) that exhibit nongravitational accelerations inconsistent with radiative effects. These objects exhibit short rotational periods (minutes to hours), where…
The temperatures of observed protoplanetary disks are not sufficiently high to produce the accretion rate needed to form stars, nor are they sufficient to explain the volatile depletion patterns in CM, CO, and CV chondrites and terrestrial…
We describe how the various outcomes of stellar tidal disruption give rise to observable radiation. We separately consider the cases where gas circularizes rapidly into an accretion disc, as well as the case when shocked debris streams…
Earth occasionally crosses the debris streams produced by comets and other active bodies in our solar system. These manifest meteor showers that provide an opportunity to explore these bodies without a need to visit them in-situ.…
The distribution of the orbits of close-in exoplanets shows evidence for on-going removal and destruction by tides. Tides raised on a planet's host star cause the planet's orbit to decay, even after the orbital eccentricity has dropped to…
A statistical analysis of brightness variability of asteroids reveals how their shapes evolve from elongated to rough spheroidal forms, presumably driven by impact-related phenomena. Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object…
Our knowledge of main-belt comets (MBCs), which exhibit comet-like activity likely due to the sublimation of volatile ices, yet orbit in the main asteroid belt, has increased greatly since the discovery of the first known MBC,…
Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…
Transiting planets are generally close enough to their host stars that tides may govern their orbital and thermal evolution of these planets. We present calculations of the tidal evolution of recently discovered transiting planets and…
The origin of the Martian moons Deimos and Phobos is controversial. One hypothesis for their origin is that they are captured asteroids, but the mechanism requires an extremely dense martian atmosphere, and the mechanism by which an…
Despite the large amount of high quality data generated in recent space encounters with asteroids, the majority of our knowledge about these objects comes from ground based observations. Asteroids travelling in orbits that are potentially…
All the four giant planets in our Solar System have rings, but their characteristics are very different. The rings consist of a number of small particles, although individual particles have not been directly imaged. Near the central planet,…
Surface charging phenomenon of asteroids, mainly resulting from solar wind plasma and solar radiation, has been studied extensively. However, the influence of asteroid's rotation on surface charging has yet to be fully understood. Here…
Many nearby stars are surrounded by a bright ring or disk of cold dust. Our calculations show that these disks and rings of dust are signposts of recent planet formation. Bright rings appear because dust associated with the formation of a…
We discuss the possibility of observing the transient formation event of an accretion disk from the tidal destruction process of an asteroid near a white dwarf (WD). This scenario is commonly proposed as the explanation for dusty disks…
25%-50% of all white dwarfs (WDs) host observable and dynamically active remnant planetary systems based on the presence of close-in circumstellar dust and gas and photospheric metal pollution. Currently-accepted theoretical explanations…
Gravitational tidal interactions drive long-term rotational and orbital evolution in planetary systems, in multiple (particularly close binary) star systems and in planetary moon systems. Dissipation of tidal flows in Earth's oceans is…
Earth-mass planets are expected to have atmospheres and experience thermal tides raised by the host star. These tides transfer energy to the planet that can counter the dissipation from bodily tides. Indeed, even a relatively thin…
There are strong evidences which favour the existence of dust in active galaxies. Understanding the way in which dust interacts with the radiation and influences the physical conditions of the gas is crucial if we want to learn about the…
The members of asteroid families have various shapes. We investigate the origin of their shapes by high-resolution impact simulations for catastrophic disruptions using a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code. Collisional remnants produced…