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Debris disks can be seen as the left-overs of giant planet formation and the possible nurseries of rocky planets. While M-type stars out-number more massive stars we know very little about the time evolution of their circumstellar disks at…
We consider how an impact generated seismic pulse affects the surface of an asteroid distant from the impact site. With laboratory experiments on dry polydisperse gravel mixtures, we track the trajectories of particles ejected from the…
Our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri, is a low mass star with spectral typedM5.5 and hosting an Earth-like planet orbiting within its habitable zone. However, the habitability of the planet depends on the high-energy radiation of…
In this work we consider the potential of cometary impacts to deliver complex organic molecules and the prebiotic building blocks required for life to rocky exoplanets. Numerical experiments have demonstrated that for these molecules to…
We assess the risk of an Earth impact for asteroid (99942) Apophis by means of a statistical analysis accounting for the uncertainty of both the orbital solution and the Yarkovsky effect. We select those observations with either rigorous…
The similar orbital distances and detection rates of debris disks and the prominent rings observed in protoplanetary disks suggest a potential connection between these structures. We explore this connection with new calculations that follow…
The question of whether asteroid ejecta can enter stable orbits about the parent body is examined.
The dynamical evolution of planetary systems leaves observable signatures in debris disks. Optical images trace micron-sized grains, which are strongly affected by stellar radiation and need not coincide with their parent body population.…
Given the inexorable increase in the Sun's luminosity, Earth will exit the habitable zone in ~1 Gyr. There is a negligible chance that Earth's orbit will change during that time through internal Solar System dynamics. However, there is a…
We have found that Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our Sun, will pass close to a pair of faint background stars in the next few years. Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images obtained in 2012 October, we determine that the passage…
Spin off events and impacts can eject boulders from an asteroid surface and rubble pile asteroids can accumulate from debris following a collision between large asteroids. These processes produce a population of gravitational bound objects…
[Abridged] Asteroid mining is not necessarily a distant prospect. Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx have recently rendezvoused with near-Earth asteroids and will return samples to Earth. While there is significant science motivation for these…
The origins of carbonaceous asteroids in the asteroid belt is not fully understood. The leading hypothesis is that they were not born at their current location but instead implanted into the asteroid belt early in the Solar System history.…
We aim to see whether debris belts evolving in between two stars may be impacted by the presence of the companion and whether this leaves any detectable signature that could be observed with current or future instruments. We consider a…
Asteroid collisions are one of the main processes responsible for the evolution of bodies in the main belt. Using observations of the Dimorphos impact by the DART spacecraft, we estimate how asteroid collisions in the main belt may look in…
Planetary rings are often speculated as being a relatively common attribute of giant planets, partly based on their prevalence within the Solar System. However, their formation and sustainability remain a topic of open discussion, and the…
Dynamical models of the asteroid delivery from the main belt suggest that the current impact flux of diameter D>10 km asteroids on the Earth is 0.5-1 per Gyr. Studies of the Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) population find a much higher flux, with…
Cosmic radiation backgrounds are a constraint on life, and their distribution will affect the Galactic Habitable Zone. Life on Earth has developed in the context of these backgrounds, and characterizing event rates will elaborate the…
We investigate whether it is possible that viable microbes could have been transported to Earth from the planets in extra-solar systems by means of natural vehicles such as ejecta expelled by comet or asteroid impacts on such planets. The…
Star formation is spatially clustered across a range of environments, from dense stellar clusters to unbound associations. As a result, radiative or dynamical interactions with neighbouring stars disrupt (proto)planetary systems and limit…