Related papers: Ring Formation around Giant Planets by Tidal Disru…
The core accretion theory of planet formation has at least two fundamental problems explaining the origins of Uranus and Neptune: (1) dynamical times in the trans-Saturnian solar nebula are so long that core growth can take > 15 Myr, and…
The age of the rings and some of the moons of Saturn is an open question, and multiple lines of evidence point to a recent (few hundred Myr ago) cataclysm involving disruption of past moons. The main driver of the evolution of the Saturnian…
The recent discovery of dense rings around the Centaur Chariklo (and possibly Chiron) reveals that complete dense planetary rings are not only found around Saturn and Uranus, but also around small bodies orbiting in the vicinity of those…
Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…
Planetary rings are the only nearby astrophysical disks, and the only disks that have been investigated by spacecraft. Although there are significant differences between rings and other disks, chiefly the large planet/ring mass ratio that…
We know that giant planets played a crucial role in the making of our Solar System. The discovery of giant planets orbiting other stars is a formidable opportunity to learn more about these objects, what is their composition, how various…
For its beautiful rings, active atmosphere and mysterious magnetic field, Saturn is a fascinating planet. It also holds some of the keys to understanding the formation of our Solar System and the evolution of giant planets in general. While…
Giant planet formation process is still not completely understood. The current most accepted paradigm, the core instability model, explains several observed properties of the solar system's giant planets but, to date, has faced difficulties…
The best constraints on the internal structures of giant planets have historically come from measurements of their gravity fields. These gravity data are inherently mostly sensitive to a planet's outer regions, providing only loose…
Reproducing Uranus and Neptune remains a challenge for simulations of solar system formation. The ice giants' peculiar obliquities suggest that they both suffered giant collisions during their formation. Thus, there must have been an epoch…
Tidal interactions between moons and planets can have major effects on the orbits, spins, and thermal evolution of the moons. In the Saturn system, tidal dissipation in the planet transfers angular momentum from Saturn to the moons, causing…
We present results from large-scale particle simulations of the viscous overstability in Saturn's rings. The overstability generates a variety of structure on scales covering a few hundred metres to several kilometres, including…
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…
Recent studies have revealed that all large (over 1000 km in diameter) trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) form satellite systems. Although the largest Plutonian satellite, Charon, is thought to be an intact fragment of an impactor directly…
We examine the tidal disruption of satellite galaxies in a cosmological simulation of the formation of a disk galaxy in the $\Lambda$CDM scenario. We find that the disruption of satellite galaxies in orbits roughly coplanar with the disk…
Giant collisions can account for Uranus's and Neptune's large obliquities, yet generating two planets with widely different tilts and strikingly similar spin rates is a low-probability event. Trapping into a secular spin-orbit resonance, a…
Using analytic modeling and simulations, we address the origin of an abundance of star-forming, clumpy, extended gas rings about massive central bodies in massive galaxies at $z \!<\! 4$. Rings form by high-angular-momentum streams and…
We suggest that the irregular structure in Saturn's B ring arises from the formation of shear-free ring-particle assemblies of up to ~100 km in radial extent. The characteristic scale of the irregular structure is set by the competition…
Gravitational fragmentation has been proposed as a mechanism for the formation of giant planets in close orbits around solar-type stars. However, it is debatable whether this mechanism can function in the inner regions (R<40 AU) of real…
The formation of Uranus' regular moons has been suggested to be linked to the origin of its enormous spin axial tilt (~98^o). A giant impact between proto-Uranus and a 2-3 M_Earth impactor could lead to a large tilt and to the formation of…