Related papers: Exocomets from a Solar System Perspective
Planets and their host stars carry a long-term memory of their origin in their chemical compositions. Thus, identifying planets formed in different environments improves our understating of planetary formation. Although restricted to…
Complex organics are now commonly found in meteorites, comets, asteroids, planetary satellites, and interplanetary dust particles. The chemical composition and possible origin of these organics are presented. Specifically, we discuss the…
Few scientific discoveries have captured the public imagination like the explosion of exoplanetary science during the past two decades. This work has fundamentally changed our picture of Earth's place in the Universe and led NASA to make…
The detection of exoplanets and accretion disks around newborn stars has spawned new ideas and models of how our Solar System formed and evolved. Meteorites as probes of geologic deep time can provide ground truth to these models. In…
Our Solar System includes the Sun, eight major planets and their moons, along with numerous asteroids, comets, and dust particles, collectively known as the small Solar System bodies. Small bodies are relics from the birth of the Solar…
With the availability of considerably more data, we revisit the question of how special our Solar System is, compared to observed exoplanetary systems. To this goal, we employ a mathematical transformation that allows for a meaningful,…
Since planets were first discovered outside our own Solar System in 1992 (around a pulsar) and in 1995 (around a main sequence star), extrasolar planet studies have become one of the most dynamic research fields in astronomy. Now that more…
The atmospheres of exoplanets reveal all their properties beyond mass, radius, and orbit. Based on bulk densities, we know that exoplanets larger than 1.5 Earth radii must have gaseous envelopes, hence atmospheres. We discuss contemporary…
Organic compounds are ubiquitous in space: they are found in diffuse clouds, in the envelopes of evolved stars, in dense star-forming regions, in protoplanetary disks, in comets, on the surfaces of minor planets, and in meteorites and…
Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…
Comets are made of volatile and refractory material and naturally experience various degrees of sublimation as they orbit around the Sun. This gas release, accompanied by dust, represents what is traditionally described as activity.…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The relationship between stars and planets provides important information for understanding the interior composition, mineralogy, and overall classification of small planets (R $\lesssim$ 3.5R$_{\oplus}$). Since stars and planets are formed…
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…
Exo-planet migration is assumed to have occurred to explain close-to-star gas giant exo-planets within the context of the so-called standard model of solar system formation, rather than giving cause to question the validity of that…
The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
The solar system's Zodiacal Cloud is visible to the unaided eye, yet the origin of its constituent dust particles is not well understood, with a wide range of proposed divisions between sources in the asteroid belt and Jupiter Family…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
To understand the chemical origin of the Solar system, the chemical evolution along the star/planet formation is a key issue. Extensive observational studies have demonstrated a chemical diversity in young low-mass protostellar sources so…