Related papers: Jumping Jupiter can explain Mercury's orbit
The MESSENGER mission sought to discover what physical processes determined Mercury's high metal to silicate ratio. Instead, the mission has discovered multiple anomalous characteristics about our innermost planet. The lack of FeO and the…
A new mechanism is proposed to account for the formation of retrograde hot Jupiter in coplanar star-planet system via close encounter between a Jupiter mass planet and a brown dwarf mass planet. After long timescale scattering between…
Jupiter's bright persistent polar aurora and Earth's dark polar region indicate that the planets' magnetospheric topologies are very different. High-resolution global simulations show that the reconnection rate at the interface between the…
The atmospheric circulation in the upper atmosphere of hot Jupiter planets is strongly influenced by the incoming stellar radiation. In this work we explore the results from a 3D atmospheric model and revisit the main processes driving the…
Recent (2011) results from the Nice Observatory indicate the existence of global seismic modes on Jupiter in the frequency range between 0.7 and 1.5mHz with amplitudes of tens of cm/s. Currently, the driving force behind these modes is a…
Observations have shown that there exists downward propagation of alternating westward/eastward jets in Jupiter's equatorial stratosphere, with a quasi-period between four and six years. This phenomenon is generally called the…
High resolution images of Mercury's surface, from the MESSENGER spacecraft, reveal many bright deposits associated with irregular, shallow, rimless depressions whose origins were attributed to volatile-related activity, but absent…
While Jupiter's massive gas envelope consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, the key to understanding Jupiter's formation and evolution lies in the distribution of the remaining (heavy) elements. Before the Juno mission, the lack of…
Observed pileups of planets with period ratios $\approx 1\%$ wide of strong mean motion resonances (MMRs) pose an important puzzle. Early models showed that they can be created through sustained eccentricity damping driving a slow…
The current dynamical structure of the Kuiper belt was shaped by the orbital evolution of the giant planets, especially Neptune, during the era following planet formation, when the giant planets may have undergone planet-planet scattering…
We examine the dynamics and stability of circumbinary particles orbiting around the Earth-Moon binary system. The moon formed close to the Earth (semi-major axis $a_{EM}\approx 3\, R_\oplus$) and expanded through tides to its current day…
The eccentricity evolution of multiple planet systems can provide valuable constraints on planet formation models. Unfortunately, the inevitable uncertainties in the current orbital elements can lead to significant ambiguities in the nature…
Various processes can induce long-lived overdense rings and arcs in protoplanetary and AGN accretion discs, such as the accumulation of gas at the outer edge of the dead zone, or the infall of material. Using the local approximation of…
Recent analyses have revealed a mystery. The orbital period of the highly inflated hot Jupiter, WASP-12b, is decreasing rapidly. The rate of inspiral, however, is too fast to be explained by either eccentricity tides or equilibrium stellar…
We examine the evolution of an almost circular Keplerian orbit interacting with unbound perturbers. We calculate the change in eccentricity and angular momentum that results from a single encounter, assuming the timescale for the…
Recent analyses of Kepler space telescope data reveal that transiting planets with orbital periods shorter than about 2-3 days are generally observed around late-type stars with rotation periods longer than about 5-10 days. We investigate…
Our current knowledge of the dynamical structure of the Kuiper Belt is reviewed here. Numerical results on long term orbital evolution and dynamical mechanisms underlying the transport of objects out of the Kuiper Belt are discussed.…
It is debated whether the two hot Jupiter populations --- those on orbits misaligned from their host star's spin axis and those well-aligned --- result from two migration channels or from two tidal realignment regimes. Here I demonstrate…
It is generally accepted today that our solar system has undergone a phase during which the orbits of the giant planets became very unstable. In recent years, many studies have identified traces of this event and have provided reasonable…
Context. More than 10000 Jupiter Trojans have been detected so far. They are moving around the L4 and L5 triangular Lagrangian points of the Sun-Jupiter system and their distributions can provide important clues to the early evolution of…