Related papers: Passing Stars as an Important Driver of Paleoclima…
Passing stars (also called stellar flybys) have notable effects on the solar system's long-term dynamical evolution, injection of Oort cloud comets into the solar system, properties of trans-Neptunian objects, and more. Based on a…
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…
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…
Transiting planets are generally close enough to their host stars that tides may govern their orbital and thermal evolution of these planets. We present calculations of the tidal evolution of recently discovered transiting planets and…
The long-term dynamical future of the Sun's planets has been simulated and statistically analyzed in great detail, but most prior work considers the solar system as completely isolated, neglecting the potential influence of field star…
Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…
The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…
From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short-period exoplanets pose a severe puzzle to theories of planet formation and orbital evolution. By far most of the planets known beyond the…
In the coming years, it is likely that the first potentially Earth-like planets will be discovered orbiting other stars. Once found, the characterisation of those planets will play a vital role in determining which will be chosen as the…
Most transiting planets orbit very close to their parent star, causing strong tidal forces between the two bodies. Tidal interaction can modify the dynamics of the system through orbital alignment, circularisation, synchronisation, and…
Planet atmospheric escape induced by high-energy stellar irradiation is a key phenomenon shaping the structure and evolution of planetary atmospheres. Therefore, the present-day properties of a planetary atmosphere are intimately connected…
The terrestrial fossil record shows a significant variation in the extinction and origination rates of species during the past half billion years. Numerous studies have claimed an association between this variation and the motion of the Sun…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
We investigate how the evolution of the stellar spin rate affects, and is affected by, planets in close orbits, via star-planet tidal interactions. To do this, we used a standard equilibrium tidal model to compute the orbital evolution of…
Changes in planetary obliquity, or axial tilt, influence the climates on Earth-like planets. In the solar system, the Earth's obliquity is stabilized due to interactions with our moon and the resulting {small amplitude variations…
The orbital evolution of about 20000 Jupiter-crossing objects and 1500 resonant asteroids under the gravitational influence of planets was investigated. The rate of their collisions with the terrestrial planets was estimated by computing…
Stars do not form in isolation but together with other stars, and often in a clustered environment. Depending on the initial conditions in these environments, such as initial density and substructure, the distances of encounters between…
Planet formation is generally described in terms of a system containing the host star and a protoplanetary disc, of which the internal properties (e.g. mass and metallicity) determine the properties of the resulting planetary system.…
Tidal interactions and planet evaporation processes impact the evolution of close-in star-planet systems. We study the impact of stellar rotation on these processes. We compute the time evolution of star-planet systems consisting of a…
Models of the Sun's long-term evolution suggest that its luminosity was substantially reduced 2-4 billion years ago, which is inconsistent with substantial evidence for warm and wet conditions in the geological records of both ancient Earth…