Related papers: Finding Planet Nine: a Monte Carlo approach
We examine the possibility of detecting signatures of surviving Uranus-Neptune-like planets inside planetary nebulae. Planets that are not too close to the stars, orbital separation larger than about 5 AU, are likely to survive the entire…
Searching for exoplanets with different methods has always been the focus of astronomers over the past few years. Among multiple planet detection techniques, astrometry stands out for its capability to accurately determine the orbital…
Small planets are extremely common in the Galaxy, including planets with masses and radii between those of Earth and Neptune. Characterizing these planets' masses requires ultra-precise radial velocities. The ESPRESSO spectrograph was…
As the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) fulfills its primary mission, it is executing an unprecedented survey of almost the entire sky: TESS's approved extended mission will likely extend sky coverage to ~94%, including…
The discovery of Earth-like planets is a major focus of current planetology research and faces a significant technological challenge. Indeed, when it comes to detecting planets as small and cold as the Earth, the cost of observation time is…
A space-based gravitational microlensing exoplanet survey will provide a statistical census of exoplanets with masses down to 0.1 Earth-masses and orbital separations ranging from 0.5AU to infinity. This includes analogs to all the Solar…
The decade-long debate over the existence of apsidal clustering in the outer solar system is poised for reignition given the plethora of distant trans-Neptunian object (TNO) discoveries expected from the forthcoming Vera C. Rubin…
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…
The New Horizons spacecraft provided near global observations of Pluto that far exceed the resolution of Earth-based data sets. Most Pluto New Horizons analysis hitherto has focused on the encounter hemisphere of Pluto (i.e., the antiCharon…
Radial velocity searches for extrasolar planets have recently detected several very low mass (7-20M_Earth) planets in close orbits with periods <10 days. We consider the prospects for detecting the analogs of these planets in Galactic open…
Imaging a star's companion at multiple epochs over a short orbital arc provides only four of the six coordinates required for a unique orbital solution. Probability distributions of possible solutions are commonly generated by Monte Carlo…
We report the discovery and orbit determination of 14 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) from the ESSENCE Supernova Survey difference imaging dataset. Two additional objects discovered in a similar search of the SDSS-II Supernova Survey…
Four planets have recently been discovered by gravitational microlensing. The most recent of these discoveries is the lowest-mass planet known to exist around a normal star. The detection of planets in gravitational microlensing events was…
Prior to the 1990s, speculations about the occurrence of planets around other stars were based only on planet formation theory, observations of circumstellar disks, and the knowledge that at least one seemingly ordinary star had managed to…
Unlike the Solar System planets, thousands of smaller bodies beyond Neptune orbit the Sun on eccentric ($e >$ 0.1) and ($i>$ 3$^\circ$) orbits. While migration of the giant planets during the early stages of Solar System evolution can…
Milgromian dynamics (MD or MOND) uniquely predicts motion in a galaxy from the distribution of its stars and gas in a remarkable agreement with observations so far. In the solar system, MD predicts the existence of some possibly…
We analyze three years (1998-2000) of OGLE observations of microlensing events to place limits on the abundance of planets with a planet-to-star mass ratio $q=10^{-3}$ at distances $\sim 1-4$AU from their host stars, i.e. `cool Jupiters'.…
Gravitational microlensing provides a unique window on the properties and prevalence of extrasolar planetary systems because of its ability to find low-mass planets at separations of a few AU. The early evidence from microlensing indicates…
We analyze the properties of searches devoted to finding planetary transits by observing simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters, open clusters, and the Galactic bulge. We develop the analytic tools necessary to predict the number…
Exoplanet habitability is traditionally assessed by comparing a planet's semi-major axis to the location of its host star's "habitable zone," the shell around a star for which Earth-like planets can possess liquid surface water. The Kepler…