Related papers: Dormant Comets Among the Near-Earth Object Populat…
We demonstrate dynamical pathways from main-belt asteroid and Centaur orbits to those in co-orbital motion with Jupiter, including the retrograde (inclination $i>90^o$) state. We estimate that at any given time, there should be $\sim1$…
Asteroids that could collide with the Earth are listed on the publicly available Near-Earth object (NEO) hazard web sites maintained by the US and European space agencies (NASA and ESA). The impact probability distribution of 69 potentially…
Only a very small fraction of the asteroid population at size scales comparable to the object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia has been discovered to date, and physical properties are poorly characterized. We present previously…
The aim of the Degenerate Objects around Degenerate Objects (DODO) survey is to search for very low mass brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets in wide orbits around white dwarfs via direct imaging. The direct detection of such companions…
Cometary activity in main-belt asteroids probes the ice content of these objects and provides clues to the history of volatiles in the inner solar system. We search the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey to derive upper limits on the…
Comets provide a valuable window into the chemical and physical conditions at the time of their formation in the young solar system. We seek insights into where and when these objects formed by comparing the range of abundances observed for…
Re-examination of the COBE DIRBE data reveals the thermal emission of several comet dust trails. The dust trails of 1P/Halley, 169P/NEAT, and 3200 Phaethon have not been previously reported. The known trails of 2P/Encke, and…
Temporarily Captured Orbiters (TCOs) are Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) which make a few orbits of Earth before returning to heliocentric orbits. Only one TCO has been observed to date, 2006 RH120, captured by Earth for one year before escaping.…
The zodiacal cloud is a thick circumsolar disk of small debris particles produced by asteroid collisions and comets. Here, we present a zodiacal cloud model based on the orbital properties and lifetimes of comets and asteroids, and on the…
The distribution of solar system absolute magnitudes ($H$) for the near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) observable near opposition -- i.e. Amors, Apollos, and Atens ($A^3$) -- is derived from the set of ALL currently known NEAs. The result is based…
Low- to intermediate-mass ($\sim$0.8$-$8 M$_\odot$) evolved stars contribute significantly to the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium in the local Universe, making accurate mass-return estimates in their final stages crucial. The…
We report the results of the narrow band photometry and imaging monitoring of comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) with the robotic telescope TRAPPIST (La Silla observatory). We gathered around 400 images over 8 months pre- and post-perihelion between…
Context. The dynamical evolution of near-parabolic comets strongly depends on the starting values of the orbital elements derived from the positional observations. In addition, when drawing conclusions about the origin of these objects, it…
In the list of young stellar objects compiled by Megeath et al. (2012) for the Orion A molecular cloud, only 44 out of 1208 sources found projected onto low extinction (Ak<0.8 mag) gas are identified as protostars. These objects are…
Since 1995, astronomers have discovered planets with masses comparable to that of Jupiter (318 times Earth's mass) in orbit around approximately 60 stars. Although unseen directly, the presence of these planets is inferred by the small…
Meteor clusters are typically defined as groups of meteors that appear close together in both space and time. To date, only a handful of such events have been recorded instrumentally and analysed in detail. In many documented cases, thermal…
Over the past decade there has been a large increase in the number of automated camera networks that monitor the sky for fireballs. One of the goals of these networks is to provide the necessary information for linking meteorites to their…
Meteoroids are pieces of asteroids and comets. They serve as unique probes to the physical and chemical properties of their parent bodies. We can derive some of these properties when meteoroids collide with the atmosphere of Earth and…
Asteroids with low orbital perihelion distances experience extreme heating from the Sun that can modify their surfaces and trigger non-typical activity mechanisms. These objects are generally difficult to observe from ground-based…
The organization of the orbits of most minor bodies in the Solar system seems to follow random patterns, the result of billions of years of chaotic dynamical evolution. Much as heterogeneous orbital behaviour is ubiquitous, dynamically…