Related papers: EL meteorites do date the giant planet instability
Planet-disk interaction predicts a change in the orbital elements of an embedded planet. Through linear and fully hydrodynamical studies it has been found that migration is typically directed inwards. Hence, this migration process gives…
We re-analyze the global orbital architecture and dynamical stability of the $\mu$ Arae planetary system. We have updated the best-fit elements and minimal masses of the planets based on literature radial velocity (RV) measurements, now…
The planet Mercury possesses an anomalously large iron core, and a correspondingly high bulk density. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed in order to explain such a large iron content. A long-standing idea holds that Mercury once…
The origins of irregular satellites of the giant planets are an important piece of the giant "puzzle" that is the theory of Solar System formation. It is well established that they are not "in situ" formation objects, around the planet, as…
The triple asteroids and triple Kuiper belt objects (collectively called the triple minor planets) in the Solar system are of particular interest to the scientific community since the discovery of the first triple asteroid system in 2004.…
The solar system is dusty, and would become dustier over time as asteroids collide and comets disintegrate, except that small debris particles in interplanetary space do not last long. They can be ejected from the solar system by Jupiter,…
Our Solar system is almost entirely devoid of material interior to Mercury's orbit, in sharp contrast to the multiple Earth masses of material commonly residing within the analogous region of extrasolar planetary systems. Recent work has…
Recent studies of solar system formation suggest that the solar system's giant planets formed and migrated in the protoplanetary disk to reach resonant orbits with all planets inside 15 AU from the Sun. After the gas disk's dispersal,…
The age of iron meteorites implies that accretion of protoplanets began during the first millions of years of the solar system. Due to the heat generated by 26Al decay, many early protoplanets were fully differentiated with an igneous crust…
Meteor clusters are typically defined as groups of meteors that appear close together in both space and time. To date, only a handful of such events have been recorded instrumentally and analysed in detail. In many documented cases, thermal…
The gravitational three-body problem is a fundamental problem in physics and has significant applications to astronomy. Three-body configurations are often considered stable as long the system is hierarchical; that is, the two orbital…
An episode of dynamical instability is thought to have sculpted the orbital structure of the outer solar system. When modeling this instability, a key constraint comes from Jupiter's fifth eccentric mode (quantified by its amplitude M55),…
Asteroid surfaces are subjected to mechanical weathering processes that result in the development and evolution of regolith. Two proposed mechanisms--impact bombardment and thermal fatigue--have been proposed as viable and dominant…
Radar and spacecraft observations show the permanently shadowed regions around Mercury's North Pole to contain water ice and complex organic material. One possible source of this material are impacts by interplanetary dust particles (IDPs),…
The origins of carbonaceous asteroids in the asteroid belt is not fully understood. The leading hypothesis is that they were not born at their current location but instead implanted into the asteroid belt early in the Solar System history.…
This paper explores the stability of an Earth-like planet orbiting a solar mass star in the presence of an outer-lying intermediate mass companion. The overall goal is to estimate the fraction of binary systems that allow Earth-like planets…
Meteorites trace planet formation in the Sun's protoplanetary disk, but they also record the influence of the Sun's birth environment. Whether the Sun formed in a region like Taurus-Auriga with ~10^2 stars, or a region like the Carina…
The extraordinary weather conditions available between February and March 2022 over Spain have allowed us to analyze the brightest fireballs recorded by the monitoring stations of the Spanish Meteor Network (SPMN). We study the atmospheric…
The habitability of planets is strongly affected by impacts from comets and asteroids. Indications from the ages of Moon rocks suggest that the inner Solar System experienced an increased rate of impacts roughly 3.8 Gya known as the Late…
The orbital architecture of the Solar System is thought to have been sculpted by a dynamical instability among the giant planets. During the instability a primordial outer disk of planetesimals was destabilized and ended up on…