Related papers: The Changing Perception of the Solar System
The majority of stars form in star clusters and many are thought to have planetary companions. We demonstrate that multi-planet systems are prone to instabilities as a result of frequent stellar encounters in these star clusters much more…
Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest and most luminous stellar systems in the Universe, offering unique insights into galaxy formation and evolution. While the physical processes behind their origin have long remained elusive, major…
Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of…
Rings are ubiquitous around giant planets in our Solar System. They evolve jointly with the nearby satellite system. They could form either during the giant planet formation process or much later, as a result of large scale dynamical…
For more than 3.5 billion years, life experienced dramatic environmental extremes on Earth. These include shifts from oxygen-less to over-oxygenated atmospheres and cycling between hothouse conditions and global glaciations. Meanwhile, an…
Star forming galaxies represent a valuable tracer of cosmic history. Recent observational progress with Hubble Space Telescope has led to the discovery and study of the earliest-known galaxies corresponding to a period when the Universe was…
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…
Astrophysical evidence suggests that the Sun was born near 5 kpc from the Galactic center, within the corotation radius of the Galactic bar, around 6-7 kpc. This presents challenges for outward migration due to the Jacobi energy constraint,…
The so-called solar cycle is generally characterized by the quasi-periodic oscillatory evolution of the photospheric spots number. This quasi-periodic pattern has always been an intriguing question. Several physical models were proposed to…
A timely combination of new theoretical ideas and observational discoveries has brought about significant advances in our understanding of cosmic evolution. Computer simulations have played a key role in these developments by providing the…
Aspects of our Solar System's formation are deduced from observations of the chemical nature of matter. Massive cores are indicative of terrestrial-planet-composition-similarity to enstatite chondrite meteorites, whose highly-reduced state…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
The Sun provides a critical benchmark for the general study of stellar structure and evolution. Also, knowledge about the internal properties of the Sun is important for the understanding of solar atmospheric phenomena, including the solar…
Observational advances over the last decade have enabled high-resolution, interferometric studies of forming multiple systems, statistical surveys of multiplicity in star-forming regions, and new insights into disk evolution and planetary…
Earth is the only planet known to harbor life and, as a result, the search for habitable and inhabited planets beyond the Solar System commonly focuses on analogs to our planet. However, Earth's atmosphere and surface environment have…
Planetary systems can evolve dynamically even after the planets themselves have fully formed, and there is circumstantial evidence that most planetary systems become unstable after the disappearance of the gaseous protoplanetary disk.…
Water is crucial for the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. Recent studies of the water content in early forming planetary systems similar to our own show that water is an abundant and ubiquitous molecule, initially synthesized on…
This review provides an introduction to the generation and evolution of the Sun's magnetic field, summarising both observational evidence and theoretical models. The eleven year solar cycle, which is well known from a variety of observed…
The hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the past two decades offer a new perspective on planetary structure. Instead of being the archetypal examples of planets, those of our Solar System are merely possible outcomes of…
Our understanding of the history of the solar system has undergone a revolution in recent years, owing to new theoretical insights into the origin of Pluto and the discovery of the Kuiper belt and its rich dynamical structure. The emerging…