Related papers: Hyades star cluster and the New comets
We have carried out a comparative statistical study for the displacement of the Sun from the Galactic plane (z_\odot) following three different methods. The study has been done using a sample of 537 young open clusters (YOCs) with log(Age)…
The Hyades stream has long been thought to be a dispersed vestige of the Hyades cluster. However, recent analyses of the parallax distribution, of the mass function, and of the action-space distribution of stream stars have shown it to be…
Very close encounters of stars might lead to significant perturbations of their Oort-type clouds, planetesimal belts and planetary systems. We have calculated encounter parameters of Hipparcos stars using HIP2, Pulkovo and CRVAD2 catalogs…
Comet nuclei in the outer Solar system are constantly irradiated by cosmic rays at low temperatures. Accumulated high concentrations of radicals can undergo fast recombination with significant heating of cometary surface layers. We present…
We propose a kinematic approach to searching for the stars that could be formed with the Sun in a common "parent" open cluster. The approach consists in preselecting suitable candidates by the closeness of their space velocities to the…
Recent numerical simulations have demonstrated that the Sun's dynamical history within the Milky Way may be much more complex than that suggested by its current low peculiar velocity. In particular, the Sun may have radially migrated…
We report the discovery of three optical open clusters in the Milky Way. Two clusters are in Scutum (Cluster1 at l=18.44 degrees and b=-0.42 degrees, and Cluster2 at l=19.60 degrees and b=-1.02 degrees), thus projected not far from the…
This paper presents the detailed results obtained in the search of density- velocity inhomogeneities in a volume limited and absolute magnitude limited sample of A-F type dwarfs within 125 parsecs of the Sun. A 3-D wavelet analysis is used…
Based on currently available kinematic data, we have searched for stars outside the Hipparcos list that either closely encountered in the past or will encounter in the future the Solar system within several parsecs. For the first time, we…
Reconstructions of the paleoclimate indicate that ancient climatic fluctuations on Earth are often correlated with variations in its orbital elements. However, the chaos inherent in the solar system's orbital evolution prevents numerical…
The Hyades cluster is known to harbour ten so-called classical white dwarf members. Numerous studies through the years have predicted that more than twice this amount of degenerate stars should be associated with the cluster. Using the…
Recent observations of the size-frequency distribution of zodiacal cloud particles obtained from the cratering record on the LDEF satellite (Love and Brownlee 1993) reveal a significant large particle population (100 micron diameter or…
Most stars do not form in isolation but as part of a cluster comprising anywhere between a few dozen to several million stars with stellar densities ranging from 0.01 to several 10$^5$ \Msun pc$^{-3}$. The majority of these clusters…
At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…
Gould's Belt is a flat local system composed of young OB stars, molecular clouds and neutral hydrogen within 500 pc from the Sun. It is inclined about 20 degrees to the galactic plane and its velocity field significantly deviates from…
We report the results of a radial velocity monitoring program in the Hyades region, carried out at the Center for Astrophysics over a period of more than 45 yr. Nearly 12,000 spectra were gathered for 625 stars brighter than $V \approx…
For decades we have known that the Sun lies within the Local Bubble, a cavity of low-density, high-temperature plasma surrounded by a shell of cold, neutral gas and dust. However, the precise shape and extent of this shell, the impetus and…
In the late stages of accretion leading up to the formation of planetesimals, particles grew to pebbles the size of 1-mm to tens of cm. That is the same size range that dominates the present-day comet mass loss. Meteoroids that size cause…
A star cluster in a galactic nucleus sinks toward the galactic center due to dynamical friction. As it spirals inward, the cluster loses mass due to stellar evolution, relaxation driven evaporation, and tidal stripping, eventually…
The Oort cloud is presumably a pristine relic of the Solar System formation. Detection of the Oort cloud may provide information regarding the stellar environment in which the Sun was born and on the planetesimal population during the outer…