Related papers: Orbital Alignment of Main-Belt Comets
Suggestions have been made that asteroid belts may be important both for the existence of life and perhaps even for the evolution of complex life on a planet. Using numerical models for protoplanetary discs we calculate the location of the…
Observations in the past decade have revealed extrasolar planets with a wide range of orbital semimajor axes and eccentricities. Based on the present understanding of planet formation via core accretion and oligarchic growth, we expect that…
We analytically and numerically investigate the long-term, i.e. averaged over one full revolution, orbital effects of the non-isotropic percent mass loss \dot m/m experienced by several transiting hot Jupiters whose atmospheres are hit by…
The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but the region is not uniformly filled with asteroids. There are gaps, known as the Kirkwood gaps, in the asteroid distribution in distinct locations that are associated…
Trojan asteroids orbit in the Lagrange points of the system Sun-planet-asteroid. Their dynamical stability make their physical properties important proxies for the early evolution of our solar system. To study their origin, we want to…
Fomalhaut b was long thought to shape the eccentric debris belt in the Fomalhaut system, but its orbit was found to be too eccentric for it to be the dominant belt-shaping perturber. This indicates that Fomalhaut b is Earth-sized at most…
Near-Earth Asteroids can be hazardous to the Earth, due to their orbital characteristics and proximity to inner Solar System planets. Using three sets of CCD images collected in June and July 2011, the orbital elements of asteroid 1994 PC1…
The complete sample of large-perihelion nearly-parabolic comets discovered during the period 1901-2010 is studied starting from their orbit determination. Next, an orbital evolution that includes three perihelion passages…
Cometary impacts pose a long-term hazard to life on Earth. Impact mitigation techniques have been studied extensively, but they tend to focus on asteroid diversion. Typical asteroid interdiction schemes involve spacecraft physically…
The polar cyclone at Jupiter's south pole and the five cyclones surrounding it oscillate in position and interact. These cyclones, observed since 2016 by NASA's Juno mission, present a unique opportunity to study vortex dynamics and…
V-type asteroids, characterized by two absorption bands at 1.0 and 2.0 $\mu m$, are usually thought to be portions of the crust of differentiated or partially differentiated bodies. Most V-type asteroids are found in the inner main belt and…
The asteroid belt is a unique source of information on some of the most important questions facing solar system science. These questions include the sizes, numbers, types and orbital distributions of the planetesimals that formed the…
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…
We combine statistical arguments and dynamical analysis to study the orbital configuration of the microlensing planetary system OGLE-2012-BLG-0026L. This system is known to host two massive planets, with both projected close to the Einstein…
Bright blazars were found to be prominent neutrino sources, and a number of IceCube events were associated with them over recent years. A particularly strong observational connection is present between neutrinos and blazars with bright,…
The past decade has brought major improvements in large-scale asteroid discovery and characterization with over half a million known asteroids and over 100,000 with some measurement of physical characterization. This explosion of data has…
We introduce a new technique to estimate the comet nuclear size frequency distribution (SFD) that combines a cometary activity model with a survey simulation and apply it to 150 long period comets (LPC) detected by the Pan-STARRS1…
We use N-body simulations to explore the influence of orbital eccentricity on the dynamical evolution of star clusters. Specifically we compare the mass loss rate, velocity dispersion, relaxation time, and the mass function of star clusters…
N-body numerical simulations code for the orbital motion of asteroids/planetesimals within the asteroid belt under the gravitational influence of the sun and the accreting planets has been developed. The aim is to make qualitative, and to…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…