Related papers: Frontiers in Planetary Rings Science
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…
The orbital parameters of the observed extrasolar planets differ strongly from those of our own solar system. The differences include planets with high masses, small semi-major axis and large eccentricities. We performed numerical…
Our understanding of the Solar System has been revolutionized over the past decade by the finding that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic. In extreme cases, chaotic motions can change the relative positions of the planets…
With the increasing number of detected exoplanet samples, the statistical properties of planetary systems have become much clearer. In this review, we summarize the major statistics that have been revealed mainly by radial velocity and…
Why bother with asteroseismology while studying exoplanets? There are several answers to this question. Asteroseismology and exoplanetary sciences have much in common and the synergy between the two opens up new aspects in both fields.…
A list of galaxies with inner regions revealing polar (or strongly inclined to the main galactic plane) disks and rings is compiled from the literature data. The list contains 47 galaxies of all morphological types, from E to Irr. We…
This paper presents a classification framework for the architectures of planetary systems based on a complete survey of the confirmed exoplanet population. With nearly 6000 confirmed exoplanets discovered, including more than 300…
In support of the National Acadamies' Exoplanet Science Strategy, this whitepaper outlines key technology challenges for studying the diversity of worlds in the Galaxy and in searching for habitable planets. Observations of habitable…
Pulsars provide a wealth of information about General Relativity, the equation of state of superdense matter, relativistic particle acceleration in high magnetic fields, the Galaxy's interstellar medium and magnetic field, stellar and…
The number of small satellites has grown dramatically in the past decade from tens of satellites per year in the mid-2010s to a projection of tens of thousands in orbit by the mid-2020s. This presents both problems and opportunities for…
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…
Observations with radar, photometric and direct imaging techniques have discovered that multiple asteroid systems can be divided clearly into a handful of different morphologies, and recently, the discovery of small unbound asteroid systems…
To-date, all human economic activity has depended on the resources of a single planet, and it has long been recognized that developments in space exploration could in principle open our closed planetary economy to external resources of…
Newly-formed planetary systems with ages of <10 Myr offer many unique insights into the formation, evolution, and fundamental properties of extrasolar planets. These planets have fallen beyond the limits of past surveys, but as we enter the…
This prospective chapter gives our view on the evolution of the study of circumstellar discs within the next 20 years from both observational and theoretical sides. We first present the expected improvements in our knowledge of…
Planetary systems that orbit white dwarf stars can be studied via spectroscopic observations of the stars themselves. Numerous white dwarfs are seen to have accreted mostly rocky minor planets, the remnants of which are present in the…
The discovery of the first extra-solar planet surrounding a main-sequence star was announced in 1995, based on very precise radial velocity (Doppler) measurements. A total of 34 such planets were known by the end of March 2000, and their…
The apparent regularity of the motion of the giant planets of our solar system suggested for decades that said planets formed onto orbits similar to the current ones and that nothing dramatic ever happened during their lifetime. The…
The SKA will be transformational for many areas of science, but in particular for the study of neutron stars and their usage as tools for fundamental physics in the form of radio pulsars. Since the last science case for the SKA, numerous…
Planet migration in protoplanetary discs plays an important role in the longer term evolution of planetary systems, yet we currently have no direct observational test to determine if a planet is migrating in its gaseous disc. We explore the…