Related papers: On the Origin of the Pluto System
Named for orbital kinship with Pluto, the Plutinos are a prominent group of Kuiper Belt objects whose orbital periods are in libration about the 3/2 ratio with Neptune's. We investigate the long term orbital dynamics of known Plutinos, with…
The leading hypothesis for the origin of the Moon, that of a single giant impact, faces significant challenges. These include either the need for an impactor with a near-identical composition to Earth or an extremely high-mass or…
We analyze findings of the Stardust mission that brought to the Earth dust from the 81P/Wild 2 coma. Just as the data of the Deep Impact mission to 9P/Tempel 1, they are at odds with the widely accepted condensation/sublimation comet…
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 develop a phenomenological theory that aims to account for the origin of the large eccentricities of extrasolar planets and that of the small eccentricities in the solar system, the preference for apsidal alignment in non-resonant…
It has long been assumed that the planet Jupiter acts as a giant shield, significantly lowering the impact rate of minor bodies upon the Earth, and thus enabling the development and evolution of life in a collisional environment which is…
The discovery that many trans-neptunian objects exist in pairs, or binaries, is proving invaluable for shedding light on the formation, evolution and structure of the outer Solar system. Based on recent systematic searches it has been…
We revisit the discovery and implications of the first candidate systems to contain multiple transiting exoplanets. These systems were discovered using data from the Kepler space telescope. The initial paper, presenting five systems…
The Earth's comparatively massive moon, formed via a giant impact on the proto-Earth, has played an important role in the development of life on our planet, both in the history and strength of the ocean tides and in stabilizing the chaotic…
We are still far from understanding how pulsars pulse, how neutron stars are born, what neutron stars can emit, and in which way they do this. In this short communication, I list 18 alternatives -- several of them old, a few of them new --…
The discovery of planetary systems beyond our solar system has challenged established theories of planetary formation. Planetary orbits display a variety of unexpected architectures, and free-floating planets appear ubiquitous. The recent…
This text was originally written to accompany a series of lectures that I gave at the `35th Saas-Fee advanced course' in Switzerland and at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. It reviews my current understanding of the…
The basic geometry of the Solar System -- the shapes, spacings, and orientations of the planetary orbits -- has long been a subject of fascination as well as inspiration for planet formation theories. For exoplanetary systems, those same…
The origin and early evolution of the Jovian moon Ganymede, known to have an internal ocean, have garnered considerable interest in the field of origin of satellites and life. Ganymede has an ancient impact structure, called a furrow…
While there has been significant progress in our understanding of the origin and evolu-tion of planetary nebulae in the last 50 years, there remain several unsolved problems. These include the true 3D morphological structure of the nebulae,…
Collisions are one of the key processes shaping planetary systems. Asteroid families are outcomes of such collisions still identifiable across our solar system. The families provide a unique view of catastrophic disruption phenomena and…
The aim of this talk is to present the most recent advances in establishing plausible planetary system architectures determined by the gravitational tidal interactions between the planets and the disc in which they are embedded during the…
Pluto and its satellites will be the most distant objects ever reconnoitered when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft conducts its intensive flyby of this system in 2015. The size-frequency distribution (SFD) of craters on the surfaces in the…
At least two active plumes were observed on Neptune's moon Triton during the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989. Models for Triton's plumes have previously been grouped into five hypotheses, two of which are primarily atmospheric phenomena and are…
We simulate the collision of precursor icy moons analogous to Dione and Rhea as a possible origin for Saturn's remarkably young rings. Such an event could have been triggered a few hundred million years ago by resonant instabilities in a…