Related papers: An orbital window into the ancient Sun's mass
Changes in planetary obliquity, or axial tilt, influence the climates on Earth-like planets. In the solar system, the Earth's obliquity is stabilized due to interactions with our moon and the resulting {small amplitude variations…
Advances in the discovery and characterization of asteroids over the past decade have revealed an unanticipated underlying structure that points to a dramatic early history of the inner Solar System. The asteroids in the main asteroid belt…
Orbital resonances are ubiquitous in the Solar system. They play a decisive role in the long term dynamics, and in some cases the physical evolution, of the planets and of their natural satellites, as well as the evolution of small bodies…
Tsiganis et al. (2005) have proposed that the current orbital architecture of the outer solar system could have been established if it was initially compact and Jupiter and Saturn crossed the 2:1 orbital resonance by divergent migration.…
Measuring the depth variation of the meridional flows is important for understanding the solar cycle, at least according to a number of dynamo models. While attempting to extend the early observations of \citet{giles_thesis} of…
The under-abundance of asteroids on orbits with small perihelion distances suggests that thermally-driven disruption may be an important process in the removal of rocky bodies in the Solar System. Here we report our study of how the debris…
Using realistic hydrodynamical simulations of the solar surface convection as 3D, time-dependent, inhomogeneous model atmospheres, the solar photospheric Si abundance has been determined to be log Si = 7.51 +- 0.04. This constitutes a…
We summarise recent progress in the understanding of the rotational evolution of low-mass stars (here defined as solar mass down to the hydrogen burning limit) both in terms of observations and modelling. Wide-field imaging surveys on…
[abridged] We have assembled a database of stars having both masses determined from measured orbital dynamics and sufficient spectral and photometric information for their placement on a theoretical HR diagram. Our sample consists of 115…
Helioseismology has allowed us to study the structure of the Sun in unprecedented detail. One of the triumphs of the theory of stellar evolution was that helioseismic studies had shown that the structure of solar models is very similar to…
We have proposed a model to obtain the length of the day and month at any geologic time. The day is found to increase by 0.002 sec/century since the seventeenth century. The lengthening of the day is attributed entirely to the increasing…
Helioseismology, the study of global solar oscillations, has proved to be an extremely powerful tool for the investigation of the internal structure and dynamics of the Sun. Studies of time changes in frequency observations of solar…
[Abridged] We present two deep surveys of circumstellar discs around solar-type stars at different ages carried out at 350 micron with the CSO and at 1.2 mm with the IRAM 30-m telescope. The aim of this study is to understand the evolution…
In the context of low-viscosity protoplanetary discs (PPDs), the formation scenarios of the Solar System should be revisited. In particular, the Jupiter-Saturn pair has been shown to lock in the 2:1 mean motion resonance while migrating…
The Sun rotates differentially with a fast equator and slow pole. Convection in the solar interior is thought to maintain the differential rotation. However, although many numerical simulations have been conducted to reproduce the solar…
The Sun will eventually lose about half of its current mass nonlinearly over several phases of post-main sequence evolution. This mass loss will cause any surviving orbiting body to increase its semimajor axis and perhaps vary its…
Precise photometry from the Kepler space telescope allows not only the measurement of rotation in solar-type field stars, but also the determination of reliable masses and ages from asteroseismology. These critical data have recently…
A new physical phenomenon is identified: volumetric stellar emission into gravitationally bound orbits of weakly coupled particles such as axions, moduli, hidden photons, and neutrinos. While only a tiny fraction of the instantaneous…
The hypothesis of a companion object (Nemesis) orbiting the Sun was motivated by the claim of a terrestrial extinction periodicity, thought to be mediated by comet showers. The orbit of a distant companion to the Sun is expected to be…
Debates regarding the age and inclination of the planetary system orbiting HR 8799, and the release of additional astrometric data following the discovery of the fourth planet prompted us to examine the possibility of constraining these two…