Related papers: The lonely Moon, double asteroids, and multiple co…
This thesis assesses the influence of astronomical phenomena on the Earth's biosphere and climate. I examine in particular the relevance of both the path of the Sun through the Galaxy and the evolution of the Earth's orbital parameters in…
Theories of how galaxies, the fundamental constituents of large-scale structure, form and evolve have undergone a dramatic paradigm shift in the last few decades. Earlier views were of rapid, early collapse and formation of basic…
Stars in multiple systems offer a unique opportunity to learn about stellar formation and evolution. As they settle down into stable configurations, multiple systems occur in a variety of hierarchies and a wide range of separations between…
Earth is unusual in bearing life, and in having a large moon. A number of authors have suggested a possible connection between the two, e.g. through lunar stabilisation of the earth's obliquity, or through the effects of the oceanic tides.…
The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…
Solid embryos of the Earth and the Moon, as well as trans-Neptunian binaries, could form as a result of contraction of the rarefied condensation which was parental for a binary. The angular momentum of the condensation needed for formation…
We review the orbital dynamics exhibited by the first extra-solar planetary system discovered, Upsilon Andromedae. This system is unique in combining all of the surprising architectural features displayed individually by extrasolar…
We model the evolution of planets with various masses and compositions. We investigate the effects of the composition and its depth dependence on the long-term evolution of the planets. The effects of opacity and stellar irradiation are…
The Chelyabinsk superbolide was the largest known natural object to enter the Earth's atmosphere since the Tunguska event in 1908 and it has become a template to understand, manage and mitigate future impacts. Although the event has been…
Given the renewed scientific interest in lunar exploration missions, complete understanding of lunar near surface environment and its exosphere under different conditions is of paramount importance. Lunar exosphere has been extensively…
Stars and their exoplanets evolve together. Depending on the physical characteristics of these systems, such as age, orbital distance and activity of the host stars, certain types of star-exoplanet interactions can dominate during given…
This chapter of the book Planetary Ring Systems addresses the origin of planetary rings, one of the least understood processes related to planet formation and evolution. Whereas rings seem ubiquitous around giant planets, their great…
In this review we concentrate on the dynamical evolution of the Milky Way as monitored in the solar neighbourhood. The relevant data sets are presented and discussed in detail. In the second part we review various mechanisms, which drive…
The paper discusses a model of the bombardment of the Earth and the Moon by small bodies when these planets were formed. It is shown that the total ice mass delivered with the bodies to the Earth from the feeding zone of the giant planets…
Relativistic heavy ion collisions offer the possibility to produce exotic metastable states of nuclear matter containing (roughly) equal number of strangeness compared to the content in baryon number. The reasoning of both their stability…
Binary stars are of course more than two stars, but they are also at least two stars. In this chapter we will review some aspects of the physics governing the evolution of single massive stars. We will also review the uncertainties of key…
The known extrasolar planets exhibit many interesting and surprising features--extremely short-period orbits, high-eccentricity orbits, mean-motion and secular resonances, etc.--and have dramatically expanded our appreciation of the…
We investigate the imaginary world of Kalgash, a planetary system based on the novel "Nightfall" (Asimov & Silverberg, 1991). The system consists of a planet, a moon and an astonishing six suns. The six stars cause the wider universe to be…
An account of the subjective elements of quantum mechanics or of whether, as Einstein famously asked, the Moon exists when nobody is looking at it.
Multiple systems play an important role in the evolution of star clusters. First we discuss several formation mechanisms which depend on the presence of binaries, either primordial or of dynamical origin. Hierarchical configurations are…