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Perhaps more than other physical sciences, astronomy is frequently statistical in nature. The objects under study are inaccessible to direct manipulation in the laboratory, so the astronomer is restricted to observing a few external…
Our understanding of the Solar System has been revolutionized over the past decade by the finding that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic. In extreme cases, chaotic motions can change the relative positions of the planets…
It has been posited that lunar eclipse observations may help predict the in-transit signature of Earth-like extrasolar planets. However, a comparative analysis of the two phenomena addressing in detail the transport of stellar light through…
The stars that populate the solar neighbourhood were formed in stellar clusters. Through N-body simulations of these clusters, we measure the rate of close encounters between stars. By monitoring the interaction histories of each star, we…
Substantial progress in the field of the Local Interstellar Medium has been largely due to recent launches of space missions, mostly in the UV and X-ray domains, but also to ground-based observations, mainly in high resolution spectroscopy.…
The statistical properties of planets in binaries were investigated. Any difference to planets orbiting single stars can shed light on the formation and evolution of planetary systems. As planets were found around components of binaries…
For centuries, humanity wondered if there were other worlds like ours in the Universe. For about a quarter of a century, we have known that planetary systems exist around other stars, and more than 3800 exoplanetary systems have been…
The goal of the Ariel space mission is to observe a large and diversified population of transiting planets around a range of host star types to collect information on their atmospheric composition. The planetary bulk and atmospheric…
Large sunspots can be observed with the unaided eye under suitable atmospheric seeing conditions. Such observations are of particular value because the frequency of their appearance provides an approximate indication of the prevailing level…
The known extrasolar planets exhibit many interesting and surprising features--extremely short-period orbits, high-eccentricity orbits, mean-motion and secular resonances, etc.--and have dramatically expanded our appreciation of the…
Due to the exquisite photometric precision, transiting exoplanet discoveries from the Kepler mission are enabling several new techniques of confirmation and characterization. One of these newly accessible techniques analyzes the phase…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
While it may seem counterintuitive that X-ray astronomy should give any insights into low-temperature planetary systems, planets orbit stars whose magnetized surfaces divert a small fraction of the stellar energy into high energy products:…
Gravitational lensing of invisible streaming matter towards the Sun could be the explanation of the puzzling solar flares and the unexplained solar emission in the EUV. Assuming that this invisible matter has some form of interaction with…
The known population of exoplanets exhibits a much wider range of orbital eccentricities than Solar System planets and has a much higher average eccentricity. These facts have been widely interpreted to indicate that the Solar System is an…
Close-in extrasolar giant planets may be directly detectable by their reflected light, due to the proximity of the planet to the illuminating star. The spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component that varies in amplitude…
The architecture of exoplanetary systems is often different from the solar system, with some exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. In analogy to interactions between stars in…
Earth's future detectability depends upon the trajectory of our civilization over the coming centuries. Human civilization is also the only known example of an energy-intensive civilization, so our history and future trajectories provide…
The discovery of planets around massive stars is important for understanding how planet formation and evolution is conditioned by different stellar environments. However, current planetary search surveys have failed to detect planets around…
Super Earths, planets between 5-10 Earth masses, are the most common type of exoplanet known, yet are completely absent from our Solar system. As a result, their detailed properties, compositions, and formation mechanisms are poorly…