Related papers: Vulcan: Retreading a Tired Hypothesis with the 202…
Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto's mass has been a value that has repeatedly been calculated. Additionally, the search for Planet X prior to Pluto's discovery results in mass calculations that date back several decades earlier. Over its…
The study of the differences detected between the observed and the predicted positions of Uranus taking only the ancient planets into account led to the discovery of planet Neptune in 1846. This event remains one of the best accomplishments…
The discovery of Pluto in 1930 presaged the discoveries of both the Kuiper Belt and ice dwarf planets, which are the third class of planets in our solar system. From the 1970s to the 19990s numerous fascinating attributes of the Pluto…
Just fourteen years ago the Solar System represented the only known planetary system in the Galaxy, and conceptions of planet formation were shaped by this sample of one. Since then, 320 planets have been discovered orbiting 276 individual…
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…
The solar system has changed dramatically since its birth, and so did our understanding of it. A considerable research effort has been invested in the past decade in an attempt to reconstruct the solar system history, including the earliest…
In this work, I re-examine the question of a possible explanation for the anomalous advance of Mercury's perihelion by the existence of a hypothetical planet, Vulcan, which I consider to be a kind of primordial black hole of planetary-mass.…
The Pluto-Charon system provides a broad variety of constraints on planetary formation, composition, chemistry, and evolution. Pluto was the first body to be discovered in what is now known as the Kuiper belt, its orbit ultimately becoming…
Doppler spectroscopy has detected 136 planets around nearby stars. A major puzzle is why their orbits are highly eccentric, while all planets in our Solar System are on nearly circular orbits, as expected if they formed by accretion…
After decades of relative neglect, interest in Venus surges anew in the planetary science community and the public. New missions are planned and selected, and will pave the way to the decade of Venus, as new observations allow us to uncover…
On 8 April 2024, tens of millions of people across North America will be able to view a total solar eclipse. Such astronomical events have been important throughout history, but with nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit, we question whether…
We report the empirical detection of a multi-planet quasi-commensurability in the Solar System and identify an anomalous exclusion that may bear on the dynamical history of Uranus. An exhaustive search identifies T* = 420,403 days (approx.…
The goal of this chapter is to review hypotheses for the origin of the Pluto system in light of observational constraints that have been considerably refined over the 85-year interval between the discovery of Pluto and its exploration by…
The orbit eccentricities of the Solar System planets are unusually low compared to the average of known exoplanetary systems. A power law correlation has previously been found between the multiplicity of a planetary system and the orbital…
Over the past three decades, we have witnessed one of the great revolutions in our understanding of the cosmos - the dawn of the Exoplanet Era. Where once we knew of just one planetary system (the Solar system), we now know of thousands,…
The number of active volcanoes and its latitudinal extent is likely to be related to the magnitude of internal heat in rocky planets. A critical value of internal heat may require in these planets to sustain volcanic activity and the…
The hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the past two decades offer a new perspective on planetary structure. Instead of being the archetypal examples of planets, those of our Solar System are merely possible outcomes of…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
For centuries, our knowledge of planetary systems and ideas about planet formation were based on a single example, our solar system. During the last thirteen years, the discovery of ~170 planetary systems has ushered in a new era for…
We point out serious shortcomings of a very recent article (Iorio in Astrophys. Space Sci. 364:126, 2019) wrongly claiming that the current precision with which we know orbits of planets in the Solar System rules out the possibility of…