Related papers: Could Jupiter or Saturn Have Ejected a Fifth Giant…

In the course of the selection of the scientific themes for the second and third L-class missions of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program of the European Space Agency, the exploration of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune was defined…

Interior to the gaseous envelopes of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, there are high-density cores with masses larger than 10 Earth masses. According to the conventional sequential accretion hypothesis, such massive cores are needed for the…

This white paper examines the benefit of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope for studies of the Solar System's four giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. JWST's superior sensitivity, combined with high spatial and…

The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…

Most of the exoplanets with known masses at Earth-like distances to Sun-like stars are heavier than Jupiter, which raises the question of whether such planets are accompanied by detectable, possibly habitable moons. Here we simulate the…

The degree of alignment between a star's spin axis and the orbital plane of its planets (the stellar obliquity) is related to interesting and poorly understood processes that occur during planet formation and evolution. Hot Jupiters…

Of the four giant planets in the Solar system, only Jupiter and Neptune are currently known to possess swarms of Trojan asteroids - small objects that experience a 1:1 mean motion resonance with their host planet. In Lykawka et al. (2009),…

Conventionally, the observed isolation of hot Jupiters, marked by a paucity of nearby low-mass planetary companions, has been interpreted as evidence of high-eccentricity tidal migration for these close-in gas giants. This loneliness is in…

Recent results have shown that many of the known extrasolar planetary systems contain regions which are stable for massless test particles. We examine the possibility that Saturn-mass planets exist in these systems, just below the detection…

Tidal interactions between Planet and its satellites are known to be the main phenomena, which are determining the orbital evolution of the satellites. We suggest in the current research to take into consideration the additional well-known…

Observations of exoplanets over the last two decades have revealed a new class of Jupiter-size planets with orbital periods of a few days, the so-called "hot Jupiters". Recent measurements using the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect have shown…

The solar system's dynamical state can be explained by an orbital instability among the giant planets. A recent model has proposed that the giant planet instability happened during terrestrial planet formation. This scenario has been shown…

The hypothesis of a recent origin of Saturn's rings and its mid-sized moons is actively debated. It was suggested that a proto-Rhea and a proto-Dione might have collided recently, giving birth to the modern system of mid-sized moons. It is…

The equatorial jets dominating the dynamics of the Jovian planets exhibit two distinct types of zonal flows: strongly eastward in the gas giants (superrotation) and strongly westward in the ice giants (subrotation). Existing theories…

We present updated atmospheric tables suitable for calculating the post-formation evolution and cooling of Jupiter and Jupiter-like exoplanets. These tables are generated using a 1D radiative transfer modeling code that incorporates the…

From the numerous detected planets outside the Solar system, no terrestrial planet comparable to our Earth has been discovered so far. The search for an Exo-Earth is certainly a big challenge which may require the detections of planetary…

We investigate the possibility that the Moon's formation impact was triggered by an early dynamical instability of the giant planets. We consider the well-studied "jumping Jupiter" hypothesis for the solar system's instability, where…

The evolution of a giant planet within the stellar envelope of a main-sequence star is investigated as a possible mechanism for enhancing the stellar metallicities of the parent stars of extrasolar planetary systems. Three-dimensional…

Gas giants orbiting interior to the ice line are thought to have been displaced from their formation locations by processes that remain debated. Here we uncover several new metallicity trends, which together may indicate that two competing…

Recent observational findings have suggested a positive correlation between the occurrence rates of inner super-Earths and outer giant planets. These results raise the question of whether this trend can be reproduced and explained by planet…