Related papers: Small Bodies in the Distant Solar System
Various problems of the formation and evolution of planetary systems are studied. Most of the studies are devoted to the Solar System. The collapse of the presolar cloud and the accumulation of planets are studied. The author considers the…
Dynamical features of a massive disk of distant trans-Neptunian objects are considered in the model of the formation of small bodies in the Hill region of a giant gas-dust clump that arose as a result of gravitational instability and…
Mean motion resonances (MMRs) can lead either to chaotic or regular motion. We report on a numerical experiment showing that even in one of the most chaotic regions of the Solar System - the region of the giant planets, there are numerous…
Detecting heat from minor planets in the outer solar system is challenging, yet it is the most efficient means for constraining the albedos and sizes of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and their progeny, the Centaur objects. These physical…
Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…
We investigate the constraints that Olbers Paradox, applied to the Zodiacal Background as measured from space, sets on outer solar system objects. If extended to very faint limits, R = 40--50 mag, the steep optical luminosity function (LF)…
Doppler planet searches revealed that many giant planets orbit close to their host star or in highly eccentric orbits. These and subsequent observations inspired new theories of planet formation that invoke gravitation interactions in…
The Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Belt and the Scattered Disk are dynamically distinct populations of small bodies evolving in the outer regions of the Solar System. Whereas their collisional activity is now quiet, gravitational interactions with…
Despite the recent discoveries of planets orbiting stars at all evolutionary stages, the evolution of planetary systems remains poorly understood. Studying planetary systems around red giant branch stars can reveal how main sequence…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…
The asteroid belt is characterized by an extreme low total mass of material on dynamically excited orbits. The Nice Model explains many peculiar qualities of the solar system, including the belt's excited state, by invoking an orbital…
Runway growth is an important stage in planet formation during which large protoplanets form, while most of the initial mass remains in small planetesimals. The amount of mass converted into large protoplanets and their resulting size…
The NASA Kepler and K2 Missions have recently revealed a population of transiting giant planets orbiting moderately evolved, low-luminosity red giant branch stars. Here, we present radial velocity measurements of three of these systems,…
In this paper we study the role of dynamical friction on the evolution of a population of large objects ($m>10^{22}$ g) at heliocentric distances $>70$ AU in the Kuiper Belt. We show that the already flat distribution of these objects must…
Surveys of the local and distant Universe are the means to test and improve our models of galaxy formation. Substantial successes in the models are evident, while there is also considerable recent progress in identifying what remains to be…
The combination of visible and thermal data from the ground and astrophysics space missions is key to improving the scientific understanding of near-Earth, main-belt, trojans, centaurs, and trans-Neptunian objects. To get full information…
The observed size distribution of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs)--small icy and rocky solar system bodies orbiting beyond Neptune--is well described by a power law at large KBO sizes. However, recent work by Bernstein et al. (2003) indicates…
A review of the results on the migration of celestial bodies in the Solar System and in some exoplanetary systems is presented. Some problems of planet accumulation and migration of planetesimals, small bodies and dust in the forming and…
Recent observations suggest that many planetary-mass objects may be present in the outer solar system between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. Gravitational perturbations may occasionally bring them into the inner solar system. Their…
We now know that the outer solar system is host to at least six diverse planetary ring systems, each of which is a scientifically compelling target with the potential to inform us about the evolution, history and even the internal structure…