Related papers: Small Solar System Bodies as granular media
Planets intermediate in size between the Earth and Neptune, and orbiting closer to their host stars than Mercury does the Sun, are the most common type of planet revealed by exoplanet surveys over the last quarter century. Results from…
The $N$-body problem is of historical significance because it was the first implementation of the Newtonian dynamical laws for the description of our Solar System. Motivated by this, the project's goal is to revisit this problem for small…
We have made an extensive search for grouping amongst the near Earth asteroids (NEAs). We used two D- functions and rigorous cluster analysis approach. We have found sev- eral new groups (associations) among the NEAs: the objects moving on…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
In this work, the orbital evolution of these objects that are located in the geostationary orbit (GEO) is analyzed. Knowing this, the possibility of using a solar sail is considered to help to clean the space environment. The main natural…
Thousands of exoplanets have been found with many widely different from the ones in our own system. Despite the success, systems with planets in wide orbits analogous to those of Jupiter and Saturn, in the critical first several hundred…
The major semiaxes of the planets in our Solar System obey a simple geometric progression known as the Titius-Bode Relation (TBR), whose physical origin remains disputed. It has been shown that the exoplanetary systems follow a similar (but…
Asteroid mining offers the possibility to revolutionize supply of resources vital for human civilization. Preliminary analysis suggests that Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA) contain enough volatile and high value minerals to make the mining…
Asteroids are remnants of the material from which the Solar System formed. Fragments of asteroids, in the form of meteorites, include samples of the first solid matter to form in our Solar System 4.5 mia years ago. Spectroscopic studies of…
Astronomical observations reveal that protoplanetary disks around young stars commonly have ring- and gap-like structures in their dust distributions. These features are associated with pressure bumps trapping dust particles at specific…
We aim to understand how landslides affect the shape and rotational motion of small rubble planetary bodies. We limit ourselves to axisymmetric global landslides, and take the primordial shape of the body to also be axisymmetric. The…
We review the state of knowledge on the origin of Earth's water. Empirical constraints come from chemical and isotopic measurements of solar system bodies and of Earth itself. Dynamical models have revealed pathways for water delivery to…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
In its 16 years of scientific measurements, the Spitzer Space Telescope performed a number of ground breaking and key infrared measurements of Solar System objects near and far. Targets ranged from the smallest planetesimals to the giant…
Cold debris disks (T$<$200 K) are analogues to the dust in the Solar System's Kuiper belt--dust generated from the evaporation and collision of minor bodies perturbed by planets, our Sun, and the local interstellar medium. Scattered light…
Planetary radars have obtained unique science measurements about solar system bodies and they have provided orbit determinations allowing spacecraft to be navigated throughout the solar system. Notable results have been on Venus, Earth's…
The study of asteroids, its composition and trajectories, has been a persistent interest in the space exploration community. In addition, they are also perceived as a great threat to life on Earth, considering the possibility of an impact…
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…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is uniquely equipped to search for Solar System bodies due to its unprecedented combination of depth and wide field coverage. Over a ten-year period starting in 2022, LSST will generate the largest…
Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…