Related papers: Small Bodies in the Distant Solar System

The densities of mid-sized Kuiper belt objects are a key constraint into understanding the assembly of objects in the outer solar system. These objects are critical for understanding the currently unexplained transition from the smallest…

The search for extrasolar planets in the past decades has shown that planets abound in the Solar neighborhood. While we are still missing an Earth twin, the forthcoming space missions and ground-based instrumentation are already driven to…

The dynamically cold component of the Kuiper Belt is host to a population of very widely separated, near-equal mass binary systems. Such binaries, representing the tail of the separation distribution of the more common, more tightly-bound…

The discovery of Sedna places new constraints on the origin and evolution of our solar system. Here we investigate the possibility that a close encounter with another star produced the observed edge of the Kuiper belt, at roughly 50 AU, and…

The Trojan asteroids provide a unique perspective on the history of Solar System. As a large population of small bodies, they record important gravitational interactions and dynamical evolution of the Solar System. In the past decade,…

Most known trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) gravitationally scattering off the giant planets have orbital inclinations consistent with an origin from the classical Kuiper belt, but a small fraction of these "scattering TNOs" have inclinations…

Exoplanets observed by the {\it Kepler} telescope exhibit a bi-modal, radius distribution, which is known as the radius gap. We explore an origin of the radius gap, focusing on multi-planet systems. Our simple theoretical argument predicts…

Small bodies, the unaccreted leftovers of planetary formation, are often mistaken for the leftovers of planetary science in the sense that they are everything else after the planets and their satellites (or sometimes just their regular…

The Kepler mission opened the door to a small but bonafide sample of circumbinary planets. Some initial trends have been identified and used to challenge our theories of planet and binary formation. However, the Kepler sample is not only…

The early gas-dust solar nebula is considered: the gasdynamic theory is used to study the gravitational Jeans-type instability in its protoplanetary disk. The implications for the origin of the solar system are discussed. It is shown that a…

The existence of extremely wide binaries in the low-inclination component of the Kuiper Belt provides a unique handle on the dynamical history of this population. Some popular frameworks of the formation of the Kuiper Belt suggest that…

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 Edgeworth-Kuiper belt encodes the dynamical history of the outer solar system. Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) bear witness to coagulation physics, the evolution of planetary orbits, and external perturbations from the solar neighborhood. We…

We describe calculations of the evolution of an ensemble of small planetesimals in the outer solar system. In a solar nebula with a mass of several times the Minimum Mass Solar Nebula, objects with radii of 100-1000 km can form on…

Determining the distribution and spectral signature of volatile ices and organics exposed on icy body surfaces can provide crucial clues for deciphering how the outer solar system formed and evolved. Over the past few decades, ground- and…

The origin of the orbital structure of the cold component of the Kuiper belt is still a hot subject of investigation. Several features of the solar system suggest that the giant planets underwent a phase of global dynamical instability, but…

We examine the dynamics of small bodies in orbits similar to that of comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, i.e. near-circular orbits between Jupiter and Saturn. As of late 2019, there are 14 other known bodies in this region that lie in similar…

Debris disks are tenuous, dust-dominated disks commonly observed around stars over a wide range of ages. Those around main sequence stars are analogous to the Solar System's Kuiper Belt and Zodiacal light. The dust in debris disks is…

The dust disk around Beta Pic must be produced by collision or by evaporation of orbiting Kuiper belt-like objects. Here we present the Orbiting-Evaporating-Bodies scenario in which the disk is a gigantic multi-cometary tail supplied by…

Stellar occultations provide a powerful tool to explore objects of the outer solar system. The Gaia mission now provides milli-arcsec accuracy on the predictions of these events and makes possible observations that were previously…