Related papers: Formation of Exomoons: A Solar System Perspective

Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…

Long-period transiting exoplanets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Their studies grant insights into planetary evolution akin to the Solar System planets, which, in…

The Solar System hosts the most studied and best understood major and minor planetary bodies - and the only extraterrestrial bodies to have been visited by spacecraft. The Solar System therefore provides important constraints on both the…

When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…

Gas giant planets have been detected on eccentric orbits several hundreds of astronomical units in size around other stars. It has been proposed that even the Sun hosts a wide-orbit planet of 5-10 Earth masses, often called Planet Nine,…

Comets, asteroids and moons that orbit stars and planets exterior to our solar system are prefixed with "exo". While the existence of these objects is certain, our understanding of their physical properties, composition, and diversity is…

The four major satellites of Jupiter, known as the Galilean moons, and Saturn's most massive satellite, Titan, are believed to have formed in a predominantly gaseous circum-planetary disk, during the last stages of formation of their parent…

Exocomets are small bodies releasing gas and dust which orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first inferred from the detection of variable absorption features in stellar spectra in the late 1980s using spectroscopy. More…

There are two planetary formation scenarios: core accretion and gravitational disk instability. Based on the fact that gaseous objects are preferentially observed around metal-rich host stars, most extra-solar gaseous objects discovered to…

Until now, there is no confirmed moon beyond our solar system (exomoon). Exomoons offer us new possibly habitable places which might also be outside the classical habitable zone. But until now, the search for exomoons needs much…

The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…

It is conceivable that a few thousand confirmed exoplanets initially harboured satellites similar to the moons of the Solar system or larger. Could some of them have survived over the aeons of dynamical evolution to the present day? The…

More than 200 moons exist in our Solar System, yet no exomoon has been confirmed to date. While the innermost two planets of the Solar System lack natural satellites and most studies favour the existence of exomoons around long-period…

When and how planets form in protoplanetary disks is still a topic of discussion. Exoplanet detection surveys and protoplanetary disk surveys are now providing results that allow us to have new insights. We collect the masses of confirmed…

Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…

The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying…

Tremendous progress in the science of extrasolar planets has been achieved since the discovery of a Jupiter orbiting the nearby Sun-like star 51 Pegasi in 1995. Theoretical models have now reached enough maturity to predict the…

We use a semi-analytic circumstellar disk model that considers movement of the snow line through evolution of accretion and the central star to investigate how gas giant frequency changes with stellar mass. The snow line distance changes…

In the nucleated instability picture of gas giant formation, the final stage is the rapid accretion of a massive gas envelope by a solid core, bringing about a tenfold or more increase in mass. This tends to trigger the scattering of any…

The origin of the regular satellites ties directly to planetary formation in that the satellites form in gas and dust disks around the giant planets and may be viewed as mini-solar systems, involving a number of closely related underlying…