Related papers: Moon-packing around an Earth-mass Planet
Detecting massive satellites of extrasolar planets has now become feasible, which led naturally to questions about their habitability. In a previous study we presented constraints on the habitability of moons from stellar and planetary…
We investigate whether any multi-planet systems among Kepler candidates (2011 February release) can harbor additional terrestrial-mass planets or smaller bodies. We apply the "packed planetary systems" hypothesis that suggests all planetary…
We study the stability of systems of three giant planets orbiting 3 - 8 M_Sol stars at orbital distances of >10 au as the host star ages through the Main Sequence (MS) and well into the White Dwarf (WD) stage. Systems are stable on the MS…
We demonstrate that the observed distribution of `Hot Neptune'/`Super-Earth' systems is well reproduced by a model in which planet assembly occurs in situ, with no significant migration post-assembly. This is achieved only if the amount of…
We investigate the long-term dynamical stability of hypothetical moons orbiting extrasolar giant planets. Stellar tides brake a planet's rotation and, together with tidal migration, act to remove satellites; this process limits the…
The late stages of terrestrial planet formation are dominated by giant impacts that collectively influence the growth, composition and habitability of any planets that form. Hitherto, numerical models designed to explore these late stage…
The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the formation process of satellite systems, and relatively large moons are thought to be born in circumplanetary disks. Making a single-moon system is known to be more difficult than…
From the numerous detected planets outside the Solar system, no terrestrial planet comparable to our Earth has been discovered so far. The search for an Exo-Earth is certainly a big challenge which may require the detections of planetary…
We used a sample of Kepler candidate planets with orbital periods less than 200 days and radii between 1.5 and 30 Earth radii to determine the typical dynamical spacing of neighboring planets. To derive the intrinsic (i.e., free of…
Given the inexorable increase in the Sun's luminosity, Earth will exit the habitable zone in ~1 Gyr. There is a negligible chance that Earth's orbit will change during that time through internal Solar System dynamics. However, there is a…
Stars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, ten to twenty per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to…
Previous work concerning planet formation around low-mass stars has often been limited to large planets and individual systems. As current surveys routinely detect planets down to terrestrial size in these systems, a more holistic approach…
Current planet formation theories rely on initially compact orbital configurations undergoing a (possibly extended) phase of giant impacts following the dispersal of the dissipative protoplanetary disk. The orbital architectures of observed…
Planetary rings are often speculated as being a relatively common attribute of giant planets, partly based on their prevalence within the Solar System. However, their formation and sustainability remain a topic of open discussion, and the…
We investigate the obliquity and spin period of Earth-Moon like systems after 4.5 Gyr of tidal evolution with various satellite masses and initial planetary obliquity and discuss their relations to the habitability of the planet. We find…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
Motivated by recent measurements of the free-floating planet mass function at terrestrial masses, we consider the possibility that the solar system may have captured a terrestrial planet early in its history. We show that $\sim 1.2$…
Planets that orbit only one of the stars in stellar binary systems (i.e., circumstellar) are dynamically constrained to a limited range of orbital parameters and thus understanding conditions on their stability is of great importance in…
Based on the large number of elliptical planetary nebulae I argue that about 55 per cent of all progenitors of planetary nebulae have planets around them. The planets spin up the stars when the later evolve along the red giant branch or…