Related papers: The Main Belt Comets and Ice in the Solar System
In the laboratory, the photo-and thermochemical evolution of ices, made of simple molecules of astrophysical relevance, always leads to the formation of semi-refractory water-soluble organic residues. Targeted searches for specific…
More than 100 extrasolar planets have been discovered since 1990s. Different from the solar system, these planets' orbital eccentricities cover a huge range from 0 to 0.7. Incidently, the first Kuiper Belt Object was discovered in 1992.…
We calculate the gamma-ray albedo flux from cosmic-ray (CR) interactions with the solid rock and ice in Main Belt asteroids (MBAs), Jovian and Neptunian Trojan asteroids, and Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) using the Moon as a template. We show…
To characterize the meteoroid environment around Mercury and its contribution to the planet's exosphere, we combined four distinctive sources of meteoroids in the solar system: main-belt asteroids, Jupiter family comets, Halley-type comets,…
The properties of the first-discovered interstellar object (ISO), 1I/2017 (`Oumuamua), differ from both Solar System asteroids and comets, casting doubt on a protoplanetary disk origin. In this study, we investigate the possibility that it…
M-stars comprise 80% of main-sequence stars, and so their planetary systems provide the best chance for finding habitable planets, i.e.: those with surface liquid water. We have modelled the broadband albedo or reflectivity of water ice and…
Until now, rings have been detected in the Solar System exclusively around the four giant planets. Here we report the discovery of the first minor-body ring system around the Centaur object (10199) Chariklo, a body with equivalent radius…
Extrasolar debris disks are the dust disks found around nearby main sequence stars arising from the break-up of asteroids and comets orbiting the stars. Far-IR surveys (e.g., with Herschel) showed that ~20% of stars host detectable dust…
Over the course of the past two decades, observational surveys have unveiled the intricate orbital structure of the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. In addition to a host of readily-predictable orbital…
Various problems of the formation and evolution of planetary systems are studied. Most of the studies are devoted to the Solar System. The collapse of the presolar cloud and the accumulation of planets are studied. The author considers the…
Water is observed throughout the universe, from diffuse interstellar clouds to protoplanetary disks around young stars, and from comets in our own solar system and exoplanetary atmospheres to galaxies at high redshifts. This review…
Meteoroids originating from the local interstellar medium, traverse the solar system. This has been proven by in situ measurements by interplanetary spacecraft as well as highly sensitive radar measurements. Early attempts to detect…
The distribution of asteroids across the Main Belt has been studied for decades to understand the compositional distribution and what that tells us about the formation and evolution of our solar system. All-sky surveys now provide orders of…
Water is the main constituent of interstellar ices, and it plays a key role in the evolution of many regions of the interstellar medium, from molecular clouds to planet-forming disks. In cold regions of the ISM, water is expected to be…
The presence of debris disks around $\sim$ 1-Gyr-old main sequence stars suggests that an appreciable amount of dust may persist even in mature planetary systems. Here we report the detection of dust emission from 55 Cancri, a star with…
The crystalline state of water ice in the Solar System depends on the temperature history of the ice and the influence of energetic particles to which it has been exposed. We measured the infrared absorption spectra of amorphous and…
From 1996 to 2015 sixteen main belt asteroids were discovered exhibiting cometary activity (less than one per year), all of them during searches at the telescope. In this work we will explore another way to discover them. We reduced 192016…
The dust disks observed around mature stars are evidence that plantesimals are present in these systems on spatial scales that are similar to that of the asteroids and the KBOs in the Solar System. These dust disks (a.k.a. ``debris disks'')…
Evidence for exocomets, icy bodies in extrasolar planetary systems, has rapidly increased over the past decade. Volatiles are detected through the gas that exocomets release as they collide and grind down within their natal belts, or as…
How and where the first generation of inner solar system planetesimals formed remains poorly understood. Potential formation regions are the silicate condensation line and water-snowline of the solar protoplanetary disk. Whether the…