Related papers: Asteroid pairs: method validation and new candidat…
We present a planar four-body model, called the Binary Asteroid Problem, for the motion of two asteroids (having small but positive masses) moving under the gravitational attraction of each other, and under the gravitational attraction of…
Over the last decades, numerous wide (>1000 AU) binaries have been discovered in the Galactic field and halo. The origin of these wide binaries cannot be explained by star formation or by dynamical interactions in the Galactic field. We…
As of today, there is no official definition of a meteor cluster. It is usually identified as a large number of meteors sharing a similar radiant and velocity, all occurring within a few seconds. Only eight clusters have been reported so…
Physical studies of asteroids depend on an availability of lightcurve data. Targets that are easy to observe and analyse naturally have more data available, so their synodic periods are confirmed from multiple sources. Also, thanks to…
The asteroid belt was dynamically shaped during and after planet formation. Despite representing a broad ring of stable orbits, the belt contains less than one one-thousandth of an Earth mass. The asteroid orbits are dynamically excited…
Systems in which two oscillating stars are observed in the same light curve, so-called asteroseismic binaries (ABs), arise from either chance alignments or gravitationally bound stars. In the latter case, ABs offer a novel way to find…
Since the first massive planet in a short period orbit was discovered, the question arised how such an object could have formed. There are basically two formation scenarios: migration due to planet-disk or planet-planet interaction. Which…
Most meteorites are fragments from recent collisions experienced in the asteroid belt. In such a hyper-velocity collision, the smaller collision partner is destroyed, whereas a crater on the asteroid is formed or it is entirely disrupted,…
All asteroids are currently classified as either family, originating from the disruption of known bodies, or non-family. An outstanding question is the origin of these non-family asteroids. Were they formed individually, or as members of…
The Orion complex is arguably the most studied star-forming region in the Galaxy. While stars are still being born in the Orion nebula, the oldest part was believed to be no more than 13 Myr old. In order to study the full hierarchy of star…
A method for determining the orbital parameters of interacting pairs of galaxies is presented and evaluated using artificial data. The method consists of a genetic algorithm which can search efficiently through the very large space of…
HR8799 is a nearby A-type star with a debris disk and three planetary candidates recently imaged directly. We undertake a coherent analysis of various portions of observational data on all known components of the system. The goal is to…
We select 50 main-belt asteroids with a diameter between 20 and 400 km for which we have (i) shape models derived by the lightcurve inversion method (LI) and (ii) resolved observations of good quality collected with the Keck II adaptive…
The Karma asteroid family is a group of primitive asteroids in the middle part of the main belt, just at the outer edge of the 3J:1A mean-motion resonance. We obtained the list of the family members with 317 asteroids and estimated that it…
A class of asteroids, called large super-fast rotators (large SFRs), have rotation periods shorter than 2 hours and diameters larger than ~ 0.3 km. They pose challenges to the usual interior rubble-pile structure unless a relatively high…
From the results of a comprehensive asteroid population evolution model, we conclude that the YORP-induced rotational fission hypothesis can be consistent with the observed population statistics of small asteroids in the main belt including…
Durda et al. (2004), using numerical models, suggested that binary asteroids with large separation, called Escaping Ejecta Binaries (EEBs), can be created by fragments ejected from a disruptive impact event. It is thought that six binary…
A specially interesting subgroup of asteroid families are young ones, i.e. those formed less than 10 Myrs ago. They have attracted a lot of attention since the first such family has been discovered in 2002. About 20 young families have been…
We measure the mid-plane of the main asteroid belt by using the observational data of a nearly complete and unbiased sample of asteroids, and find that it has inclination $\bar{I}=0.93\pm0.04$ degrees and longitude of ascending node…
Asteroid families with ages younger than $1$ Myr offer an interesting possibility of studying the outcomes of asteroid disruptions that are little modified by subsequent evolutionary processes. We analyze a very young asteroid family…