Related papers: Outer Solar System Perihelion Gap Formation Throug…
The longitudes of perihelia and orbital poles of the solar system's dozen or so most remote detected objects are clustered in a manner inconsistent with that of a random sample of uniformly distributed orbits. While small number statistics…
By telescopic tracking, we have established that the orbit of the trans-neptunian object (2000 CR$_{105}$) has a perihelion of $\simeq$44 AU, and is thus outside the domain controlled by strong gravitational close encounters with Neptune.…
The hypothesis of an additional planet in the outer Solar System has gained new support as a result of the confinement noted in the angular orbital elements of distant trans-Neptunian objects. Orbital parameters proposed for the external…
It is likely that multiple bodies with masses between those of Mars and Earth ("planetary embryos") formed in the outer planetesimal disk of the solar system. Some of these were likely scattered by the giant planets into orbits with…
Correlations in the orbits of several minor planets in the outer solar system suggest the presence of a remote, massive Planet Nine. With at least ten times the mass of the Earth and a perihelion well beyond 100 AU, Planet Nine poses a…
The most pristine remnants of the Solar system's planet formation epoch orbit the Sun beyond Neptune, the small bodies of the trans-Neptunian object populations. The bulk of the mass is in ~100 km objects, but objects at smaller sizes have…
The orbital element distribution of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with large pericenters has been suggested to be influenced by the presence of an undetected, large planet at >200 AU from the Sun. To find additional observables caused by…
This paper reviews coagulation models for planet formation in the Kuiper Belt, emphasizing links to recent observations of our and other solar systems. At heliocentric distances of 35-50 AU, single annulus and multiannulus planetesimal…
This paper reports the discovery and orbital characterization of two extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs), 2016 QV$_{89}$ and 2016 QU$_{89}$, which have orbits that appear similar to that of a previously known object, 2013 UH$_{15}$. All…
Context. The paths followed by the known extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) effectively avoid direct gravitational perturbations from the four giant planets, yet their orbital eccentricities are in the range between 0.69-0.97. Solar…
The hypothesis that a massive Planet Nine exists in the outer solar system on a distant eccentric orbit was inspired by observations showing that the objects with the most distant eccentric orbits in the Kuiper belt have orbits which are…
Most known trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) gravitationally scattering off the giant planets have orbital inclinations consistent with an origin from the classical Kuiper belt, but a small fraction of these "scattering TNOs" have inclinations…
Inner Oort Cloud objects (IOCs) are Trans-Plutonian for their entire orbits. They are beyond the strong gravitational influences of the known planets yet close enough to the Sun that outside forces are minimal. Here we report the discovery…
We have been conducting a survey for distant solar system objects beyond the Kuiper Belt edge (~50 AU) with new wide-field cameras on the Subaru 8 meter and CTIO 4 meter telescopes. We are interested in the orbits of objects that are…
We use an extensive suite of numerical simulations to constrain the mass and orbit of Planet Nine, the recently proposed perturber in a distant eccentric orbit in the outer solar system. We compare our simulations to the observed population…
Over the course of the past two decades, observational surveys have unveiled the intricate orbital structure of the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. In addition to a host of readily-predictable orbital…
The observation that the orbits of long-period Kuiper Belt objects are anomalously clustered in physical space has recently prompted the Planet Nine hypothesis - the proposed existence of a distant and eccentric planetary member of our…
We are conducting a survey for extreme solar system objects to understand Sedna and 2012 VP113 and determine if an unknown massive planet exists in the outer solar system. Two new objects, 2014 SR349 and 2013 FT28, are extreme detached…
Recent analyses have shown that distant orbits within the scattered disk population of the Kuiper belt exhibit an unexpected clustering in their respective arguments of perihelion. While several hypotheses have been put forward to explain…
The planets of our solar system formed from a gas-dust disk. However, there are some properties of the solar system that are peculiar in this context. First, the cumulative mass of all objects beyond Neptune (TNOs) is only a fraction of…