Related papers: Did Uranus' regular moons form via a rocky giant i…
The origin of the regular satellites ties directly to planetary formation in that the satellites form in gas and dust disks around the giant planets and may be viewed as mini-solar systems, involving a number of closely related underlying…
The proposed multi-impact model explains the formation of the Moon, Charon, and binary asteroids without invoking catastrophic cosmic events. The main elements of the new model are as follows: a. A primordial, low-mass proto-satellite disk…
We consider a scenario where the small satellites of Pluto and Charon grew within a disk of debris from an impact between Charon and a trans-Neptunian Object (TNO). After Charon's orbital motion boosts the debris into a disk-like structure,…
Uranus' startlingly large obliquity of 98 degrees has yet to admit a satisfactory explanation. The most widely accepted hypothesis involving a giant impactor that tipped Uranus onto its side encounters several difficulties with regards to…
Single massive satellites are of great observational interest, as they can produce prominent and potentially detectable signatures. For terrestrial planets and super-Earths, giant impacts in the late stages of formation may generate dense…
In order to examine the ``giant impact hypothesis'' for the Moon formation, we run the first grid-based, high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations for an impact between proto-Earth and a proto-planet. The spatial resolution for the…
The Moon is generally thought to have formed from the debris ejected by the impact of a planet-sized object with the proto-Earth towards the end of planetary accretion. Modeling of the impact process predicts that the lunar material was…
The Moon is believed to have formed in the aftermath of a giant impact between a planetary mass body and the proto-Earth. In a typical giant impact scenario, a disk of vapor, liquid, and solid debris forms around the proto-Earth and--after…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the formation process of satellite systems, and relatively large moons are thought to be born in circumplanetary disks. Making a single-moon system is known to be more difficult than…
The $\mu$ and $\nu$ rings of Uranus form a secondary ring-moon system with the satellites Puck, Mab,Portia, and Rosalind. These rings are tenuous and dominated by micrometric particles, which can be strongly disturbed by the solar radiation…
We explore the past evolution of Saturn's moons using direct numerical integrations. We find that the past Tethys-Dione 3:2 orbital resonance predicted in standard models likely did not occur, implying that the system is less evolved than…
In this paper we investigate the formation of narrow planetary rings such as those found around Uranus and Saturn through the tidal disruption of a weak, gravitationally bound satellite that migrates within its Roche limit. Using $N$-body…
We consider the formation of satellites around the Pluto-Charon binary. An early collision between the two partners likely produced the binary and a narrow ring of debris, out of which arose the moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. How the…
Centaurs are minor planets orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune that have or had crossing orbits with one or more giant planets. Recent observations and reinterpretation of previous observations have revealed the existence of ring systems…
One of the unique aspects of Earth is that it has a fractionally large Moon, which is thought to have formed from a Moon-forming disk generated by a giant impact. The Moon stabilizes the Earth's spin axis at least by several degrees and…
In a previous investigation, the orbital radii of regular satellites of Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, and Saturn are shown to be directly related to photon energies in the spectra of atomic and molecular hydrogen. To explain these observations…
Almost all the planets of our solar system have moons. Each planetary system has however unique characteristics. The Martian system has not one single big moon like the Earth, not tens of moons of various sizes like for the giant planets,…
The Earth's Moon is thought to have formed from a circumterrestrial disk generated by a giant impact between the proto-Earth and an impactor approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Since the impact was energetic, the disk would have been hot…
A relationship between the average orbital radii of the planets and their satellites in the solar system and the spectra of atomic and molecular hydrogen is identified and investigated. In this model, stimulated radiative association…
Recent analyses have shown that the concluding stages of giant planet formation are accompanied by the development of large-scale meridional flow of gas inside the planetary Hill sphere. This circulation feeds a circumplanetary disk that…