Related papers: Organics in the Solar System
Knowledge of the nucleosynthetic isotope composition of the outermost protoplanetary disk is critical to understand the formation and early dynamical evolution of the Solar System. We report the discovery of outer disk material preserved in…
Some low-density exoplanets are thought to be water-rich worlds that formed beyond the snow line of their protoplanetary disc, possibly accreting coequal portions of rock and water. However, the compositions of bodies within the Solar…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
Context. Near- and mid-infrared observations have revealed the presence of organic refractory materials in the solar system, in cometary nuclei and on the surface of centaurs, Kuiper-belt and trans-neptunian objects. In these astrophysical…
In this review presented at the Royal Society meeting, "Cometary Science After Rosetta", I present an overview of studies of small solar system objects that exhibit properties of both asteroids and comets (with a focus on so-called active…
A fundamental question in cometary science is whether the different dynamical classes of comets have different chemical compositions, which would reflect different initial conditions. From the ground or Earth orbit, radio and infrared…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies. Current observational results in our galaxy provide a complex physical and chemical…
The Capture Theory gives planet production through a tidal interaction between a condensed star and a diffuse protostar within a dense embedded cluster. Initial extensive and highly eccentric planetary orbits round-off and decay in a…
The probability is investigated that the meteorites originating on Earth are transferred to other planets in our Solar System and to extra solar planets. We take the collisional Chicxulub crater event, and material that was ejected as an…
Complex organic molecules (COMs) are widely detected in protostellar and protoplanetary systems, where they are thought to have been inherited in large part from earlier evolutionary phases. The chemistry of COMs in these earlier phases,…
Biomolecules can be synthesized in interstellar ice grains subject to UV radiation and cosmic rays. I show that on time scales of $\gtrsim 10^{6}$ years, these processes lead to the formation of large percolation clusters of organic…
Essentially everything of astronomical interest is either part of a galaxy, or from a galaxy, or otherwise relevant to the origin or evolution of galaxies. Diverse examples are that the isotropic composition of meteorites provides clues to…
Planetary systems can evolve dynamically even after the planets themselves have fully formed, and there is circumstantial evidence that most planetary systems become unstable after the disappearance of the gaseous protoplanetary disk.…
Asteroid impacts with the Earth may have played an essential role in the emergence of life on Earth through their creation of favorable niches for life, changes to the atmosphere and delivery of water. Consequently, we suggest two potential…
Chondritic meteorites, the building blocks of terrestrial planets, are made of an out-of-equilibrium assemblage of solids formed at high and low temperatures, either in our Solar system or previous generations of stars. This was considered…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
Mirror matter is predicted to exist if parity is an unbroken symmetry of nature. Currently, there is a large amount of evidence that mirror matter actually exists coming from astrophysics and particle physics. One of the most fascinating…
Terrestrial exoplanets likely form initial atmospheres through outgassing during and after accretion, although there is currently no first-principles understanding of how to connect a planet's bulk composition to its early atmospheric…
Recent models of galactic chemical evolution account for updated evolutionary models of massive stars (with special emphasis on stellar winds) and for the effects of intermediate mass and massive binaries. The results are summarised. We…
Solar and extrasolar planets are the subject of numerous studies aiming to determine their chemical composition and internal structure. In the case of extrasolar planets, the composition is important as it partly governs their potential…