Related papers: The hazard from fragmenting comets
Cool a piece of the Sun to 1000 K at one millibar pressure to yield a mineral assemblage consistent with those found in the most primitive meteorites. This is an equilibrium or fractional condensation experiment simulated by calculations…
The passage of the Earth through dense clumps of dark matter, the presence of which are predicted by certain cosmologies, would produce large quantities of heat in the interior of this planet through the capture and subsequent annihilation…
During the fragmentation and collapse of a molecular cloud, it is expected to have close encounters between (proto)stellar objects that can lead to the ejection of a fraction of them as runaway objects. However, the duration and the…
Observed high multiplicity planetary systems are often tightly packed. Numerical studies indicate that such systems are susceptible to dynamical instabilities. Dynamical instabilities in close-in tightly packed systems, similar to those…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
We investigate various dark energy models by taking into account the thermal effects induced from Hawking radiation on the apparent horizon of the Universe, for example near a finite-time future singularity. If the dark energy density…
In the high-eccentricity migration (HEM) scenario, close-in planets reach the vicinity of the central star on high-eccentricity orbits that become circularized---with a concomitant decrease in the semimajor axis---through a tidal…
Planet formation is accompanied by the formation of comet clouds. In systems where planets migrate on rapid timescales, the diffusive evolution of comet orbits may stall, resulting in a comet cloud intermediate between a flattened Kuiper…
We show that if comets (or any small icy planetesimals such as Kuiper belt objects) are composed of pebble piles, their internal radiogenic as well as geochemical heating results in considerably different evolutionary outcomes compared to…
Many questions in physical cosmology regarding the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, chemical enrichment, reionization, etc. are thought to be intimately related to the nature and evolution of pregalactic structure. In particular…
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…
Vaporized metal, silicates, and ices on the verge of re-condensing into solid or liquid particles appear in many contexts: behind shocks, in impact ejecta, and within the atmospheres and outflows of stars, disks, planets, and minor bodies.…
Centaurs are solar system objects with orbits situated among the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune. Centaurs represent one of the sources of Near-Earth Objects. Thus, it is crucial to understand their orbital evolution which in some cases might…
Earth-sized planets were observed in close-in orbits around M dwarfs. While more and more planets are expected to be uncovered around M dwarfs, theories of their formation and dynamical evolution are still in their infancy. We investigate…
Since very recently, we acquired knowledge on the existence of comets in extrasolar planetary systems. The formation of comets together with planets around host stars now seems evident. As stars are often born in clusters of interstellar…
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…
Previously proposed mechanisms have difficulty explaining the disruption of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) as it approached the Sun. We describe a novel cometary disruption mechanism whereby comet nuclei fragment and disperse through dynamic…
Due to the gas rich environments of early circumstellar disks, the gravitational collapse of cool, dense regions of the disk form fragments largely composed of gas. During formation, disk fragments may attain increased metallicities as they…
It has been suggested that the ejection to interplanetary space of terrestrial crustal material, accelerated in a large impact, may result in the interchange of biological material between Earth and other Solar System bodies. In this paper,…
A viable solution to the origin of close binary systems, unaccounted for in recent theories, is presented. Fragmentation, occurring at the end of the secondary collapse phase (during which molecular hydrogen is dissociating), can form…