Related papers: The doubly librating Plutinos
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has revealed the complex geology of Pluto and Charon. Pluto's encounter hemisphere shows ongoing surface geological activity centered on a vast basin containing a thick layer of volatile ices that appears to…
Pluto and Charon are a dwarf binary system with a high mass ratio $\mu$, preventing Trojan companions. This instability creates ideal intersections for low-energy pathways that spacecraft can traverse and serves as an important test case…
Pluto's system of 5 known satellites are in a puzzling orbital configuration. Each of the four small satellites are on low-eccentricity and low-inclination orbits situated near a mean motion resonance with the largest satellite Charon. The…
A simple dynamical model is employed to study the possible orbital evolution of scattered planets and phase plane analysis is used to classify the parameter space and solutions. Our results reconfirm that there is always an increase in…
The dwarf planet Pluto is known to host an extended system of five co-planar satellites. Previous studies have explored the formation and evolution of the system in isolation, neglecting perturbative effects by the Sun. Here we show that…
We present a new theoretical analysis of the PSR B1620-26 triple system in the globular cluster M4, based on the latest radio pulsar timing data, which now include measurements of five time derivatives of the pulse frequency. These data…
Pluto and its five known satellites form a complex dynamic system. Here we explore where additional satellites could exist exterior to Charon (the innermost moon) but interior of Hydra (the outermost). We also provide dynamical constraints…
The Solar system beyond Neptune is believed to house a population of small primordial bodies left over from the planet formation process. The region up to heliocentric distance $\sim 50 AU$ (a.k.a. the Kuiper Belt) may be the source of the…
We review ongoing efforts to identify occupants of mean-motion resonances (MMRs) and collisional families in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. Direct integrations of trajectories of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) reveal the 1:1 (Trojan), 5:4, 4:3, 3:2…
We study gravitational clustering of mass points in three dimensions with random initial positions and periodic boundary conditions (no expansion) by numerical simulations. Correlation properties are well defined in the system and a sort of…
Close encounters (CEs) between celestial objects may exert significant influence on their orbits. The influence will be even enhanced when two groups of celestial objects are confined in stable orbital configurations, e.g. in adjacent mean…
Although the present-day orbital distribution of minor bodies that go around the Sun between the orbit of Neptune and the Kuiper Cliff is well understood, past ~50 au from the Sun, our vision gets blurred as objects become fainter and…
This paper explores the dynamic properties of the planar system of an ellipsoidal satellite in an equatorial orbit about an oblate primary. In particular, we investigate the conditions for which the satellite is bound in librational motion…
The orbital evolution and stability of planetary systems with interaction from the belts is studied using the standard phase-plane analysis. In addition to the fixed point which corresponds to the Keplerian orbit, there are other fixed…
Many binary minor planets (BMPs; both binary asteroids and binary Trans-Neptunians objects; TNOs) are known to exist in the Solar system. The currently observed orbital and physical properties of BMPs hold essential information and clues…
This study explores the gravitational interaction between Pluto and its moon Charon, which has led to their synchronous orbit, where they consistently show the same face to each other. This process is known as tidal evolution, which…
In the framework of the semiclassical approach the universal spectral correlations in the Hamiltonian systems with classical chaotic dynamics can be attributed to the systematic correlations between actions of periodic orbits which (up to…
This paper is an attempt to detect correlation between characteristics of a big planet of the Solar System (such as mass \QTR{it}{m}, radius \QTR{it}{r}, and sidereal period of rotation on its axis \QTR{it}{t}) and elements of its orbit…
The Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) exhibit an orbital clustering of the outer planets lying at perihelion distances larger than Neptune and semimajor axes greater than 150 AU from the Sun. This implies a hitherto unknown dynamical mechanism to…
We present a 3D general circulation model of Pluto and Triton's atmospheres, which uses radiative-conductive-convective forcing. In both the Pluto and Triton models, an easterly (prograde) jet is present at the equator with a maximum…