Related papers: Why are dense planetary rings only found between 8…
Jovian planet formation has been shown to be strongly correlated with host star metallicity, which is thought to be a proxy for disk solids. Observationally, previous works have indicated that jovian planets preferentially form around stars…
Models are developed to simulate lightcurves of stars dimmed by transiting exoplanets with and without rings. These models are then applied to \textit{Kepler} photometry to search for planetary rings in a sample of 21 exoplanets, mostly hot…
The discovery of ring systems around objects of the outer Solar System provides a strong motivation to apply theoretical models in order to better estimate their physical and orbital parameters, which can constrain scenarios for their…
Recent studies of solar system formation suggest that the solar system's giant planets formed and migrated in the protoplanetary disk to reach resonant orbits with all planets inside 15 AU from the Sun. After the gas disk's dispersal,…
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…
Young stars are mostly found in dense stellar environments, and even our own Solar system may have formed in a star cluster. Here, we numerically explore the evolution of planetary systems similar to our own Solar system in star clusters.…
Low-albedo asteroids preserve a record of the primordial solar system planetesimals and the conditions in which the solar nebula was active. However, the origin and evolution of these asteroids are not well-constrained. Here we measured…
The Sun is located inside an extremely low density and quite irregular volume of the interstellar medium, known as the Local Cavity (LC). It has been widely believed that some kind of interaction could be occurring between the LC and Loop…
The majority of stars in known star-forming regions are located in binary systems. Although the separation distribution of these populations varies from one region to another, most peak between a few and several tens of AU. Given the >100…
Most stars and their planets form in open clusters. Over 95 per cent of such clusters have stellar densities too low (less than a hundred stars per cubic parsec) to withstand internal and external dynamical stresses and fall apart within a…
We examine Herschel Space Observatory images of one nearby prototypical outer ring galaxy, NGC 1291, and show that the ring becomes more prominent at wavelengths longer than 160um. The mass of cool dust in the ring dominates the total dust…
Previous investigations of Saturn's outer D ring (73,200-74,000 km from Saturn's center) identified periodic brightness variations whose radial wavenumber increased linearly over time. This pattern was attributed to a vertical corrugation,…
We simulate the collision of precursor icy moons analogous to Dione and Rhea as a possible origin for Saturn's remarkably young rings. Such an event could have been triggered a few hundred million years ago by resonant instabilities in a…
In a previous paper (Hedman and Nicholson 2013), we developed tools that allowed us to confirm that several of the waves in Saturn's rings were likely generated by resonances with fundamental sectoral normal modes inside Saturn itself. Here…
Chariklo has two narrow and dense rings, C1R and C2R, located at 391 km and 405 km, respectively. In the light of new stellar occultation data, we study the stability around Chariklo. We also analyse three confinement mechanisms, to prevent…
The Voyager 2 Radio Science Subsystem occultations of the Uranian alpha and beta rings exhibit quasi-periodic optical depth variations with radial wavelengths that vary with longitude. These patterns may be wakes from small moonlets…
The occurrence of planets in binary star systems has been investigated via a variety of techniques that sample a wide range of semi-major axes, but with a preponderance of such results applicable to planets with semi-major axes less than a…
Simple theoretical calculations have suggested that small body impacts onto Pluto's newly discovered small satellites, Nix and Hydra, are capable of generating time-variable rings or dust sheets in the Pluto system. Using HST/ACS data…
Saturn's rings consist of a huge number of water ice particles, with a tiny addition of rocky material. They form a flat disk, as the result of an interplay of angular momentum conservation and the steady loss of energy in dissipative…
With the availability of considerably more data, we revisit the question of how special our Solar System is, compared to observed exoplanetary systems. To this goal, we employ a mathematical transformation that allows for a meaningful,…