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Related papers: The Tidal-Thermal Evolution of the Pluto-Charon Sy…

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Pluto's recently discovered minor moons, Nix and Hydra, have almost circular orbits, and are nearly coplanar with Charon, Pluto's major moon. This is surprising because tidal interactions with Pluto are too weak to damp their…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-02-22 Yoram Lithwick , Yanqin Wu

Understanding the physics of planetary magma oceans has been the subject of growing efforts, in light of the increasing abundance of Solar system samples and extrasolar surveys. A rocky planet harboring such an ocean is likely to interact…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-12-11 Mohammad Farhat , Pierre Auclair-Desrotour , Gwenaël Boué , Tim Lichtenberg , Jacques Laskar

The large Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Eris is nearly as big as Pluto and has a small moon, Dysnomia. Constraints on the system's spin and orbit characteristics were recently used to argue for a dissipative Eris, requiring a differentiated…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-08-25 Ryunosuke Akiba , Francis Nimmo

There is an intriguing and growing population of Neptune-sized planets with stellar obliquities near $\sim90^{\circ}$. One previously proposed formation pathway is a disk-driven resonance, which can take place at the end stages of planet…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-10-04 Emma Louden , Sarah Millholland

TRAPPIST-1 (Gillon et al. 2017) is an extremely compact planetary system: seven earth-sized planets orbit at distances lower than 0.07 AU around one of the smallest M-dwarf known in the close neighborhood of the Sun (with a mass of less…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-10-29 Sylvain Breton , Emeline Bolmont , Gabriel Tobie , Stéphane Mathis

Tidal effects arise from differential and inelastic deformation of a planet by a perturbing body. The continuous action of tides modify the rotation of the planet together with its orbit until an equilibrium situation is reached. It is…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2010-09-20 Alexandre C. M. Correia , Jacques Laskar

In recent years, there have been a growing number of observations indicating the presence of rocky material in short-period orbits around white dwarfs. In this Letter, we revisit the prospects for habitability around these…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-22 Juliette Becker , Darryl Z. Seligman , Fred C. Adams , Marshall J. Styczinski

A search for temporal changes on Pluto and Charon was motivated by (1) the discovery of young surfaces in the Pluto system that imply ongoing or recent geologic activity, (2) the detection of active plumes on Triton during the Voyager 2…

Thermal, orbital, and rotational dynamics of tidally loaded exoplanets are interconnected by intricate feedback. The rheological structure of the planet determines its susceptibility to tidal deformation and, as a consequence, participates…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-09-02 Michaela Walterová , Marie Běhounková

The evolution of planetary systems around white dwarfs is crucial to understanding the presence of planetary material in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. These systems uniquely probe exoplanetary compositions. Periodic signals in the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-06-26 Yuqi Li , Amy Bonsor , Oliver Shorttle , Laura K. Rogers

Tidal dissipation in planets and stars is one of the key physical mechanisms driving the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. Several signatures of its action are observed in planetary systems thanks to their orbital…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-09-23 P. Auclair-Desrotour , S. Mathis , C. Le Poncin-Lafitte

In the outer solar system beyond Jupiter, water ice is a dominant component of planetary bodies, and most solid objects in this region are classified as icy bodies. Icy bodies display a remarkable diversity of geological, geophysical, and…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-12-10 Jun Kimura

We examine the relevance of tidal heating for large Trans-Neptunian Objects, with a focus on its potential to melt and maintain layers of subsurface liquid water. Depending on their past orbital evolution, tidal heating may be an important…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-12-20 Prabal Saxena , Joe Renaud , Wade G. Henning , Martin Jutzi , Terry Hurford

Solid body tides provide key information on the interior structure, evolution, and origin of the planetary bodies. Our Solar system harbours a very diverse population of planetary bodies, including those composed of rock, ice, gas, or a…

The evolution of exoplanetary systems with a close-in planet is ruled by the tides mutually raised on the two bodies and by the magnetic braking of the host star. This paper deals with consequences of this evolution and some features that…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-07-05 S. Ferraz-Mello , C. Beaugé

The tidal heating of hypothetical rocky (or terrestrial) extra-solar planets spans a wide range of values depending on stellar masses and initial orbits. Tidal heating may be sufficiently large (in many cases, in excess of radiogenic…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Brian Jackson , Rory Barnes , Richard Greenberg

Close-in co-orbital planets (in a 1:1 mean motion resonance) can experience strong tidal interactions with the central star. Here, we develop an analytical model adapted to the study of the tidal evolution of those systems. We use a…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-11-01 Jérémy Couturier , Philippe Robutel , Alexandre C. M. Correia

New Horizons mission observations show that the small satellites Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra, of the Pluto-Charon system, have not tidally spun-down to near synchronous spin states and have high obliquities with respect to their orbit…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-05-03 Alice C. Quillen , Fiona Nichols-Fleming , Yuan-Yuan Chen , Benoit Noyelles

The impact heat accumulated during the late stage of planetary accretion can melt a significant part or even the entire mantle of a terrestrial body, giving rise to a global magma ocean. [...] Assuming fractional crystallization of the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-19 A. -C. Plesa , N. Tosi , D. Breuer

The New Horizons mission to the Kuiper Belt has recently revealed intriguing features on the surface of Charon, including a network of chasmata, cutting across or around a series of high topography features, conjoining to form a belt. It is…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-05-16 Uri Malamud , Hagai B. Perets , Gerald Schubert