Related papers: Orbital clustering in the distant solar system
Knowledge of the Kuiper Belt is currently limited to those objects that can be detected directly. Objects with diameters less than $\sim$10km reflect too little light to be detected. These smaller bodies could contain most of the mass in…
The Einstein rings and proper motions of nearby stars tend to be large. Thus, every year some foreground stars within a few hundred parsecs of Earth induce gravitational lensing events in background stars. In some of these cases, the events…
The traditional method for detecting extra-solar planets relies on measuring a small stellar wobble which is assumed to be caused by a planet orbiting the star. Recently, it was suggested that a similar stellar wobble could be caused by a…
By telescopic tracking, we have established that the orbit of the trans-neptunian object (2000 CR$_{105}$) has a perihelion of $\simeq$44 AU, and is thus outside the domain controlled by strong gravitational close encounters with Neptune.…
We discover alignment of galaxies in clusters by analyzing the distribution of their position angles. We assume that galaxies are aligned, if their number at one 90deg position angle interval is more than twice higher than at another 90deg…
Planetary systems formed in clusters may be subject to stellar encounter flybys. Here we create a diverse range of representative planetary systems with different orbital scales and planets' masses and examine encounters between them in a…
Short duration lensing events tend to be generated by low-mass lenses or by lenses with high transverse velocities. Furthermore, for any given lens mass and speed, events of short duration are preferentially caused by nearby lenses…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
The realization that most stars form in clusters, raises the question of whether star/planet formation are influenced by the cluster environment. The stellar density in the most prevalent clusters is the key factor here. Whether dominant…
Directional clustering can be expected in cosmic ray observations due to purely statistical fluctuations for sources distributed randomly in the sky. We develop an analytic approach to estimate the probability of random cluster…
The majority of stars form in star clusters and many are thought to have planetary companions. We demonstrate that multi-planet systems are prone to instabilities as a result of frequent stellar encounters in these star clusters much more…
The discovery of giant planets orbiting close to their host stars was one of the most unexpected results of early exoplanetary science. Astronomers have since found that a significant fraction of these 'Hot Jupiters' move on orbits…
We consider the possibility of cluster membership for 13 planetary nebulae that are located in close proximity to open clusters lying in their lines of sight. The short lifetimes and low sample size of intermediate-mass planetary nebulae…
It has recently been shown that stellar clustering plays an important role in shaping the properties of planetary systems. We investigate how the multiplicity distributions and orbital periods of planetary systems depend on the 6D phase…
Galactic orbits have been constructed over long time intervals for ten globular clusters located near the Galactic center. A model with an axially symmetric gravitational potential for the Galaxy was initially applied, after which a…
To explain the unusual distribution of Kuiper Belt objects, several authors have advocated the existence of a super-Earth planet in the outer solar system. It has recently been proposed that a 10 M$_{\oplus}$ object with an orbit of 700 AU…
The Classical Kuiper Belt is populated by a group of objects with low inclination orbits, reddish colors and usually belonging to a binary system. This so called Cold Classical Kuiper Belt is considered to have been formed in situ from…
Objects in the Kuiper belt are small and far away thus difficult to study in detail even with the best telescopes available at earth. For much of the early history of the Kuiper belt, studies of the compositions of these objects were…
A large fraction of stars are formed in dense clusters. In the cluster, close encounters between stars at distances less than 100 au are common. It has been shown that during close encounters planets can transfer between stars. Such…
We have been conducting a survey for distant solar system objects beyond the Kuiper Belt edge (~50 AU) with new wide-field cameras on the Subaru 8 meter and CTIO 4 meter telescopes. We are interested in the orbits of objects that are…