Related papers: Spall Craters in the Solar System
Incompressible and isotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in plasms can be described by an exact relation for the energy flux through the scales. This Yaglom-like scaling law has been recently observed in the solar wind above the solar…
Building on recent progress in the understanding of particle transport in magnetized plasmas, we derive a scaling law for the formation of nonthermal spectral tails in mildly and strongly magnetized turbulent environments. We validate this…
Planetary systems evolve over secular time scales. One of the key mechanisms that drive this evolution is tidal dissipation. Submitted to tides, stellar and planetary fluid layers do not behave like rocky ones. Indeed, they are the place of…
We investigate the shrinkage induced breakup of thin layers of heterogeneous materials attached to a substrate, a ubiquitous natural phenomenon with a wide range of potential applications. Focusing on the evolution of the fragment ensemble,…
The Kepler Mission has detected dozens of compact planetary systems with more than four transiting planets. This sample provides a collection of close-packed planetary systems with relatively little spread in the inclination angles of the…
Recent progress in instrumentation enables solar observations with high resolution simultaneously in the spatial, temporal, and spectral domains. We use such high-resolution observations to study small-scale structures and dynamics in the…
Several stars show deep transits consistent with discs of roughly 1 Solar radius seen at moderate inclinations, likely surrounding planets on eccentric orbits. We show that this configuration arises naturally as a result of planet-planet…
We study the final architecture of planetary systems that evolve under the combined effects of planet-planet and planetesimal scattering. Using N-body simulations we investigate the dynamics of marginally unstable systems of gas and ice…
About 10% of the observed asteroids have rotational periods lower than P = 3 h and they seem to be relatively close to the spin barrier. Yet, the rotation has often been neglected in simulations of asteroid collisions. To determine the…
The formation of a solar system is believed to have followed a multi-stage process around a protostar. Whipple first noted that planetesimal growth by particle agglomeration is strongly influenced by gas drag; there is a "bottleneck" at the…
Most major planetary bodies in the solar system rotate in the same direction as their orbital motion: their spin is prograde. Theoretical studies to explain the direction as well as the magnitude of the spin vector have had mixed success.…
In most extrasolar planetary systems, the present orbits of known giant planets admit the existence of stable terrestrial planets. Those same giant planets, however, have typically eccentric orbits that hint at violent early dynamics less…
The dust disks observed around mature stars are evidence that plantesimals are present in these systems on spatial scales that are similar to that of the asteroids and the KBOs in the Solar System. These dust disks (a.k.a. ``debris disks'')…
Electron velocity distribution functions in the solar wind according to standard models consist of 4 components, of which 3 are symmetric - the core, the halo, and the superhalo, and one is magnetic field-aligned, beam-like population,…
Rings are ubiquitous around giant planets in our Solar System. They evolve jointly with the nearby satellite system. They could form either during the giant planet formation process or much later, as a result of large scale dynamical…
Here, we develop scaling laws for (1) the distribution of impact-induced heat within the mantle and (2) shape of the impact-induced melt based on more than 100 smoothed particle hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations. We use Legendre polynomials to…
Young stellar objects are observed to have large X-ray fluxes and are thought to produce commensurate luminosities in energetic particles (cosmic rays). This particle radiation, in turn, can synthesize short-lived radioactive nuclei through…
Slip at a frictional interface occurs via intermittent events. Understanding how these events are nucleated, can propagate, or stop spontaneously remains a challenge, central to earthquake science and tribology. In the absence of disorder,…
The number of splashed fingers generated by a solid projectile's impact onto a viscous liquid layer is experimentally studied. A steel sphere is dropped onto a viscous liquid pool. Then, a fingering instability occurs around the crater's…
The spin-orbit obliquity of a planetary system constraints its formation history. A large obliquity may either indicate a primordial misalignment between the star and its gaseous disk or reflect the effect of different mechanisms tilting…