Related papers: Turning up the heat on `Oumuamua
The search for extrasolar Earth-like planets is underway. Over 100 extrasolar giant planets are known to orbit nearby sun-like stars, including several in multiple-planet systems. These planetary systems are stepping stones for the search…
The apparent regularity of the motion of the giant planets of our solar system suggested for decades that said planets formed onto orbits similar to the current ones and that nothing dramatic ever happened during their lifetime. The…
The Sun shrinks during solar maximum and regrows during solar minimum by a few kilometers. Here, we observe, for the first time, that the solar radius variation shows planetary relationship. This suggests that some remote planetary links…
Over the past two years, the search for low-mass extrasolar planets has led to the detection of seven so-called 'hot Neptunes' or 'super-Earths' around Sun-like stars. These planets have masses 5-20 times larger than the Earth and are…
In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…
We consider the effects of mutual transits by extrasolar planet-companion systems (in a true binary or a planet-satellite system) on light curves. We show that induced changes in light curves depend strongly on a ratio between a…
The Oort cloud is usually thought of as a collection of icy comets inhabiting the outer reaches of the Solar system, but this picture is incomplete. We use simulations of the formation of the Oort cloud to show that ~4% of the small bodies…
Two decades ago, astronomers began detecting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, so-called exoplanets. Since that time, the rate of detections and the sensitivity to ever-smaller planets has improved dramatically with several…
The basic geometry of the Solar System -- the shapes, spacings, and orientations of the planetary orbits -- has long been a subject of fascination as well as inspiration for planet formation theories. For exoplanetary systems, those same…
`Oumuamua is nothing like we expected or seen before in the Solar System.
This paper compares the statistical features of the sample of discovered extrasolar planets with those of the secondaries in nearby spectroscopic binaries, in order to enable us to distinguish between the two populations. Based on 32 planet…
The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…
Continuing work initiated in an earlier publication [Sato and Asada, PASJ, 61, L29 (2009)], we consider light curves influenced by the orbital inclination and eccentricity of a companion in orbit around a transiting extrasolar planet (in a…
During their main sequence lifetimes, the majority of all Galactic Disc field stars must endure at least one stellar intruder passing within a few hundred AU. Mounting observations of planet-star separations near or beyond this distance…
Passing stars can perturb the Oort Cloud, triggering comet showers and potentially extinction events on Earth. We combine velocity measurements for the recently discovered, nearby, low-mass binary system WISE J072003.20-084651.2 ("Scholz's…
Mercury, due to its close location to the Sun, is surrounded by an environment whose conditions may be considered as "extreme" in the entire Solar System. Both solar wind and radiation are stronger with respect to other Solar System bodies,…
It is known that near-Earth objects (NEOs) during their orbital evolution may often undergo close approaches to the Sun. Indeed it is estimated that up to ~70% of them end their orbital evolution colliding with the Sun. Starting from the…
Transiting extrasolar planets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation of planets as well as their internal structure. The existence of a secondary eclipse enables further study of the thermal properties of the the planet by…
Close encounters of stars to the Sun could affect life on Earth through gravitational perturbations of comets in the Oort cloud or exposure to ionizing radiation. By integrating orbits through the Galactic potential, I identify which of 33…
The discovery of binaries in each of the major populations of minor bodies in the solar system is propelling a rapid growth of heretofore unattainable physical information. The availability of mass and density constraints for minor bodies…