Related papers: Small Bodies in the Distant Solar System
Distant objects in the solar system are crucial to better understand the history and evolution of its outskirts. The stellar occultation technique allows the determination of their sizes and shapes with kilometric accuracy, a detailed…
Observed hyperbolic minor bodies might have an interstellar origin, but they can be natives of the Solar system as well. Fly-bys with the known planets or the Sun may result in the hyperbolic ejection of an originally bound minor body; in…
Although there is abundant and diverse observational evidence in support of white dwarf stars hosting planets or debris disks which form in the catastrophic destruction of various planetary bodies, the key processes that explain these…
Core Accretion, the most widely accepted scenario for planet formation, postulates existence of km-sized solid bodies, called planetesimals, arranged in a razor-thin disc in the earliest phases of planet formation. In the Tidal Downsizing…
Observations of circumstellar disks around stars as a function of stellar properties such as mass, metallicity, multiplicity, and age, provide constraints on theories concerning the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Utilizing…
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…
We show, by comparing observations with theoretical models, that the observed Kuiper Belt size distribution is well matched by coagulation models, which start from an initial planetesimal population with radii of about 1km, and subsequent…
Thousands of small bodies, known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), orbit the Sun beyond Neptune. TNOs are remnants of the planets' formation from a disc of gas and dust, so it is puzzling that they move mostly on eccentric orbits inclined…
The orbital distribution of transneptunian objects (TNOs) in the distant Kuiper Belt (with semimajor axes beyond the 2:1 resonance, roughly $a$=50-100 au) provides constraints on the dynamical history of the outer solar system. Recent…
The non-resonant Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) between the 3:2 and 2:1 Neptunian mean motion resonances can be largely divided between a cold classical belt (CCB) and a hot classical belt (HCB). A notable difference between these two…
Observations with radar, photometric and direct imaging techniques have discovered that multiple asteroid systems can be divided clearly into a handful of different morphologies, and recently, the discovery of small unbound asteroid systems…
Haumea, a rapidly rotating elongated dwarf planet (~ 1500 km in diameter), has two satellites and is associated with a "family" of several smaller Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) in similar orbits. All members of the Haumea system share a water…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
Small Solar system bodies serve as pristine records that have been minimally altered since their formation. Their observations provide valuable information regarding the formation and evolution of our Solar system. Interstellar objects…
A question central to understanding the origin of our solar system is: how do planets form in circumstellar disks around young stars? Because of the complex nature of the physical processes involved, multi-wavelength observations of large…
In this paper we dynamically determine the mass of the Kuiper Belt Objects by exploiting the latest observational determinations of the orbital motions of the inner planets of the Solar System. Our result, in units of terrestrial masses, is…
The inner Solar System contains a cloud of small (1-100 micron) dust grains created when small bodies-asteroids, comets, and Kuiper belt objects-collide and outgas. This dust cloud, the zodiacal cloud probably has extrasolar analogs,…
Planetary systems that orbit white dwarf stars can be studied via spectroscopic observations of the stars themselves. Numerous white dwarfs are seen to have accreted mostly rocky minor planets, the remnants of which are present in the…
Observations of the Kuiper Belt indicate that a larger than expected percentage of KBO's (approximately 8 out of 500) are in binary pairs. The formation and survival of such objects presents a conundrum [1]. Two competing theories have been…
Modern studies of the early solar system routinely invoke the possibility of an orbital instability among the giant planets triggered by gravitational interactions between the planets and a massive exterior disk of planetesimals. Previous…