Related papers: True Polar Wander of Enceladus From Topographic Da…
Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life in our solar system, having an active plume likely connected to a large liquid water subsurface ocean. Using the sensitive NIRSpec instrument onboard JWST, we searched for organic compounds…
Relics of ancient accretion events experienced by the Milky Way are predominantly located within the stellar halo of our Galaxy. However, debris from different objects display overlapping distributions in dynamical spaces, making it…
Context. Determining the orbital periods of cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) is essential for confirming candidates and for the understanding of their evolutionary state. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) provides month-long…
The boundaries of the Uranian epsilon, alpha, and beta rings can be fitted by Keplerian ellipses. The pair of ellipses that outline a given ring share a common line of apsides. Apse alignment is surprising because the quadrupole moment of…
The standard method for observationally confirming the existence of a predicted finite topology of the universe involves searching for the repetition of the same finite or extended source in different directions. However, serious problems…
Saturn's diffuse E ring consists of many tiny (micron and sub-micron) grains of water ice distributed between the orbits of Mimas and Titan. Various gravitational and non-gravitational forces perturb these particles' orbits, causing the…
Following our identification of the probable interstellar origin of high-inclination Centaurs, Morbidelli et al. (2020) issued a rebuttal criticizing our methods and conclusions. Here, we show that the criticism is unfounded. Entropy's…
Tidal interactions between short-period exoplanets and their host stars drive orbital decay and have likely led to engulfment of planets by their stars. Precise transit timing surveys, with baselines now spanning decades for some planets,…
A wide range of exoplanet and exomoon models are characterized by a finite average rigidity and a viscosity much lower than the typical values for terrestrials. Such semiliquid bodies may or may not have rigid crusts with permanent figures.…
Numerical simulations carried out over the past decade suggest that the orbits of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems are unstable, resulting in an apparent chaotic growth of the eccentricity. Here we show that the irregular and…
We systematically searched for gravity- and Rossby-mode period spacing patterns in Kepler eclipsing binaries with $\gamma$ Doradus pulsators. These stars provide an excellent opportunity to test the theory of tidal synchronisation and…
In a number of geophysical or planetological settings (Earth's inner core, a silicate mantle crystallizing from a magma ocean, or an ice shell surrounding a deep water ocean) a convecting crystalline layer is in contact with a layer of its…
In the fundamental quest of the rotation curve of the Milky Way, the tangent-point (TP) method has long been the simplest way to infer velocities for the inner, low latitude regions of the Galactic disk from observations of the gas…
Mountain ranges, volcanoes, trenches, and craters are common on rocky bodies throughout the Solar System, and we might we expect the same for rocky exoplanets. With ever larger telescopes under design and a growing need to not just detect…
Recent analysis of scientific data from Cassini and earth-based observations gave evidence for a global ocean under a surrounding solid ice shell on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Images of Enceladus' South Pole showed several fissures in the ice…
Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…
A number of synchronous moons are thought to harbor water oceans beneath their outer ice shells. A subsurface ocean frictionally decouples the shell from the interior. This has led to proposals that a weak tidal or atmospheric torque might…
The Cold Spot is a puzzling large-scale feature in the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature maps and its origin has been subject to active debate. As an important foreground structure at low redshift, the Eridanus supervoid was recently…
The debris disk surrounding the young star TWA 7 exhibits morphological features that tightly constrain its planetary architecture. JWST/MIRI observations have recently revealed a directly imaged outer planet at large separation. The disk…
The structure and dynamics of the magnetospheres of the outer planets, particularly Saturn and Jupiter, have been explored both through remote and in-situ observations. Interpreting these observations often necessitates simultaneous…