Related papers: On the Origin of the Pluto System
We investigate the possibility that the Moon's formation impact was triggered by an early dynamical instability of the giant planets. We consider the well-studied "jumping Jupiter" hypothesis for the solar system's instability, where…
Observations of the Kuiper Belt indicate that a larger than expected percentage of KBO's (approximately 8 out of 500) are in binary pairs. The formation and survival of such objects presents a conundrum [1]. Two competing theories have been…
From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short-period exoplanets pose a severe puzzle to theories of planet formation and orbital evolution. By far most of the planets known beyond the…
There are still many open questions regarding the nature of Uranus and Neptune, the outermost planets in the Solar System. In this review we summarize the current-knowledge about Uranus and Neptune with a focus on their composition and…
The problem of origin of outer irregular satellites of large planets is considered. The capture way of their origin most probable, however there is not detail theory. There are a number of irregular satellites, discovered in recent time. It…
For centuries, our knowledge of planetary systems and ideas about planet formation were based on a single example, our solar system. During the last thirteen years, the discovery of ~170 planetary systems has ushered in a new era for…
This article explores the different formation scenarios of the Kronian moons system in the context of a highly dissipative Saturn, with the objective of identifying the most likely of these scenarios. First, we review the diversity of…
Despite great advances in our understanding of the formation of the Solar System, the evolution of the Earth, and the chemical basis for life, we are not much closer than the ancient Greeks to an answer of whether life has arisen and…
The recent discovery of free-floating planets and their theoretical interpretation as celestial bodies, either condensed independently or ejected from parent stars in tight clusters, introduced an intriguing possibility. Namely, that some…
In the leading theory of lunar formation, known as the giant impact hypothesis, a collision between two planet-size objects resulted in a young Earth surrounded by a circumplanetary debris disk from which the Moon later accreted. The range…
We numerically investigate the possibility that a close stellar encounter could account for the high inclinations of the Kuiper belt, as originally proposed by Ida, Larwood and Burkert, however we consider encounters with pericenters within…
Planet formation occurs around a wide range of stellar masses and stellar system architectures. An improved understanding of the formation process can be achieved by studying it across the full parameter space, particularly toward the…
The classical scenario of terrestrial planet formation is characterized by a phase of giant impacts among Moon-to-Mars mass planetary embryos. While the classic model and its adaptations have produced adequate analogs of the outer three…
The problem of the formation of the Moon is still not explained satisfactorily. While it is a generally accepted scenario that the last giant impact on Earth between some 50 to 100 million years after the starting of the formation of the…
Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are icy/rocky bodies that move beyond the orbit of Neptune in a region known as the trans-Neptunian belt (or Edgeworth-Kuiper belt). In contrast to the predictions of accretion models that feature…
After a brief recall of the main impacts of stellar rotation on the structure and the evolution of stars, four topics are addressed: 1) the links between magnetic fields and rotation; 2) the impact of rotation on the age determination of…
The small satellites of the Pluto system (Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra) have very low surface escape velocities, and impacts should therefore eject a large amount of material from their surfaces. We show that most of this material then…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…
Revealing the mechanisms shaping the architecture of planetary systems is crucial for our understanding of their formation and evolution. In this context, it has been recently proposed that stellar clustering might be the key in shaping the…
The GJ 1148 system has two Saturn-mass planets orbiting around an M dwarf star on hierarchical and eccentric orbits, with orbital period ratio of 13 and eccentricities of both planets of 0.375. The inner planet is in the regime of eccentric…