Related papers: Dynamical origin of Dimorphos from fast spinning D…
In this paper we investigate the formation of narrow planetary rings such as those found around Uranus and Saturn through the tidal disruption of a weak, gravitationally bound satellite that migrates within its Roche limit. Using $N$-body…
Several tens of white dwarfs are known to host circumstellar discs of dusty debris, thought to arise from the tidal disruption of rocky bodies originating in the star's remnant planetary system. This paper investigates the evolution of such…
The Monoceros ring is a collection of stars in nearly-circular orbits at roughly 18 kpc from the Galactic center. It may have originated (i) as the response of the disc to perturbations excited by satellite companions or (ii) from the tidal…
We numerically explore the possibility that the large orbital inclination of the martian satellite Deimos originated in an orbital resonance with an ancient inner satellite of Mars more massive than Phobos. We find that Deimos's inclination…
Trajectory design in highly-perturbed environments like binary asteroids is challenging. It typically requires using realistic, non-autonomous dynamical models in which periodic solutions derived in autonomous systems vanish. In this work,…
The hypothesis of a recent origin of Saturn's rings and its mid-sized moons is actively debated. It was suggested that a proto-Rhea and a proto-Dione might have collided recently, giving birth to the modern system of mid-sized moons. It is…
White dwarfs are routinely observed to have polluted atmospheres, and sometimes significant infrared excesses, that indicate ongoing accretion of circumstellar dust and rocky debris. Typically this debris is assumed to be in the form of a…
Since 2013, dense and narrow rings are known around the small Centaur object Chariklo and the dwarf planet Haumea. Dense material has also been detected around the Centaur Chiron, although its nature is debated. This is the first time ever…
(Abridged) The origin of dSphs in the Local Group (LG) remains an enigma. The tidal stirring model posits that late-type, rotationally-supported dwarfs resembling present-day dwarf irregular (dIrr) galaxies can transform into dSphs via…
Close to the Roche radius of a white dwarf (WD), an asteroid on a circular orbit sheds material that then adopts a very similar orbit. Observations of the resulting debris show a periodic behavior and changes in flux on short timescales,…
Phobos is the target of the return sample mission Martian Moons eXploration by JAXA that will analyze in great details the physical and compositional properties of the satellite from orbit, from the surface and in terrestrial laboratories,…
The destiny of planetary systems through the late evolution of their host stars is very uncertain. We report a metal-rich gas disk around a moderately hot and young white dwarf. A dynamical model of the double-peaked emission lines…
ESA's Hera space mission is on its way to the mission target, the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos. HyperScout-H, one of the instruments onboard Hera, is a hyperspectral imager operating in the visible and near-infrared regions between 0.65…
No less than 15% of large (diameter greater than 140 km) asteroids have satellites. The commonly accepted mechanism for their formation is post-impact reaccumulation. However, the detailed physical and dynamical properties of these systems…
We have observed the Didymos-Dimorphos binary system with the MUSE integral field unit spectrograph mounted at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) pre and post-DART impact, and captured the ensuing ejecta cone, debris cloud, and tails at…
We propose and analyze a new mechanism for the formation of the wide asynchronous binary population. These binary asteroids have wide semi-major axes relative to most near-Earth and Main Belt asteroid systems. Confirmed members have rapidly…
For a satellite with an irregular shape, which is the common shape among asteroids, the well-known spin-orbit resonance problem could be changed to a spin-orbit coupling problem since a decoupled model does not accurately capture the…
Most main-belt asteroids are primitive rock and metal bodies in orbit about the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Disruption, through high velocity collisions or rotational spin-up, is believed to be the primary mechanism for the production and…
The origin of the Martian moons Deimos and Phobos is controversial. One hypothesis for their origin is that they are captured asteroids, but the mechanism requires an extremely dense martian atmosphere, and the mechanism by which an…
Current theory considers two options for the formation of the Pluto-Charon binary (Canup 2005, 2011; Desch 2015). In the `hit-and-run' model, a lower mass projectile barely hits the more massive Pluto, kicks up some debris, and remains…