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Predicting the rate of escape and thermal structure of Pluto's upper atmosphere in preparation for the New Horizons Spacecraft encounter in 2015 is important for planning and interpreting the expected measurements. Having a moderate Jeans…
Although our solar system features predominantly circular orbits, the exoplanets discovered so far indicate that this is the exception rather than the rule. This could have crucial consequences for exoplanet climates, both because eccentric…
We propose that the two newly detected Earth-size planets around the hot B subdwarf star KIC 05807616 are remnant of the tidally destructed metallic core of a massive planet. A single massive gas-giant planet was spiralling-in inside the…
Although the Earth's orbit is never far from circular, terrestrial planets around other stars might experience substantial changes in eccentricity that could lead to climate changes, including possible "phase transitions" such as the…
[Abridged] Protoplanetary disks have been studied extensively, both physically and chemically, to understand the environment in which planets form. However, the first steps of planet formation are likely to occur already when the protostar…
The interaction of modified holographic dark energy and dark matter with varying $G$ in flat Kaluza Klein universe is considered. Further, we take infrared cutoff scale $L$ as future event horizon. In this scenario, equations of state…
Active eruptions from the south polar region of Saturn's small (~500 km diameter) moon Enceladus are concentrated along a series of lineaments known as the `tiger stripes', thought to be partially open fissures that connect to the liquid…
Plutinos are Kuiper-belt objects that share the 3:2 Neptune resonance with Pluto. The long-term stability of Plutino orbits depends on their eccentricity. Plutinos with eccentricities close to Pluto (fractional eccentricity difference…
During its departure from Pluto, New Horizons used its LORRI camera to image a portion of Pluto's southern hemisphere that was in a decades-long seasonal winter darkness, but still very faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected by Charon.…
Since the discovery of an ice particle plume erupting from the south polar terrain on Saturn's moon Enceladus, the geophysical mechanisms driving its activity have been the focus of substantial scientific research. The pattern and…
We investigate the impact of nightside cloud formation on the observable night-day contrast of tidally-locked terrestrial planet atmospheres. We demonstrate that, in the case where the planetary dayside is only 10s of Kelvin hotter than the…
To date, over 500 short-period rocky planets with equilibrium temperatures above 1500 K have been discovered. Such planets are expected to support magma oceans, providing a direct interface between the interior and the atmosphere. This…
The goal is to determine the composition of Pluto's atmosphere and to constrain the nature of surface-atmosphere interactions. We perform high--resolution spectroscopic observations in the 2.33--2.36 $\mu$m range, using CRIRES at the VLT.…
The process of forming a circumbinary planet is thought to be intimately related to the structure of the nascent circumbinary disc. It has been shown that the structure of a circumbinary disc depends strongly on 3-dimensional effects and on…
Combining findings from New Horizons' suite of instruments reveals a bimodal haze particle distribution within Pluto's atmosphere, which haze models have not been able to reproduce. We employ the photochemical and microphysics KINAERO model…
Pluto, Titan, and Triton make up a unique class of solar system bodies, with icy surfaces and chemically reducing atmospheres rich in organic photochemistry and haze formation. Hazes play important roles in these atmospheres, with physical…
Many of the unusual properties of Pluto's orbit are widely accepted as evidence for the orbital migration of the giant planets in early solar system history. However, some properties remain an enigma. Pluto's long term orbital stability is…
Explosive nucleosynthesis is a combination of the nuclear physics of thermonuclear reactions, and the hydrodynamics of the plasma in which the reactions occur. It depends upon the initial conditions---the stellar evolution up to the…
Our discovery of two new satellites of Pluto, designated S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2 (henceforth, P1 and P2), combined with the constraints on the absence of more distant satellites of Pluto, reveal that Pluto and its moons comprise an…
Kaluza-Klein theory admits ``bubble" configurations, in which the circumference of the fifth dimension shrinks to zero on some compact surface. A three parameter family of such bubble initial data at a moment of time-symmetry (some…