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The unexpected finding of a ring system around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo opened a new window for dynamical studies and posed many questions about the formation and evolutionary mechanisms of Centaurs as well as the relationship to…
The motion of planetesimals initially located in the feeding zone of the planet Proxima Centauri c, at distances of 500 AU from the star to the star's Hill sphere radius of 1200 AU was considered. In the analyzed non-gaseous model, the…
Centaurs are objects whose orbits are found between those of the giant planets. They are supposed to originate mainly from the TransNeptunian objects, and they are among the sources of NearEarth Objects.TransNeptunian Objects (TNOs) cross…
We use published models of the early Solar System evolution with a slow, long-range and grainy migration of Neptune to predict the orbital element distributions and the number of modern-day Centaurs. The model distributions are biased by…
In two recent papers published in MNRAS, Namouni and Morais (2018, 2020) claimed evidence for the interstellar origin of some small Solar System bodies, including i) objects in retrograde co-orbital motion with the giant planets, and ii)…
Due to its Earth-like minimum mass of 1.27 M$_{\text{E}}$ and its close proximity to our Solar system, Proxima Centauri b is one of the most interesting exoplanets for habitability studies. Its host star, Proxima Centauri, is however a…
Proxima Centauri is an M dwarf approximately 15,000 AU from the Alpha Centauri binary, comoving and likely in a loosely bound orbit. Dynamic simulations show this configuration can form from a more tightly bound triple system. As our…
With the recent discoveries of interstellar objects `Oumuamua and Borisov traversing the solar system, understanding the dynamics of interstellar objects is more pressing than ever. These detections have highlighted the possibility that…
Centaurs are small bodies orbiting in the giant planet region which were scattered inwards from their source populations beyond Neptune. Some members of the population display comet-like activity during their transition through the solar…
Proxima Centauri b, an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of our nearest stellar neighbour, has just been discovered. A theoretical framework of synchronously rotating planets, in which the risk of a runaway greenhouse on the sunlight…
Passing stars may play an important role in the evolution of our solar system. We search for close stellar encounters to the Sun among all 7.2 million stars in Gaia-DR2 that have six-dimensional phase space data. We characterize encounters…
A stellar occultation of Gaia DR3 2646598228351156352 by the Centaur (2060) Chiron was observed from the South African Astronomical Observatory on 2018 November 28 UT. Here we present a positive detection of material surrounding Chiron from…
The discovery that the centaur (10199) Chariklo possesses a ring system opens questions about their origin. We here asses the plausibility of different scenarios for the origin of the observed ring system. We first consider the possibility…
$\omega$ Centauri is considered the most massive globular cluster of the Milky Way and likely the former nuclear star cluster of a galaxy accreted by the Milky Way. It is speculated to contain an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) from…
The nearest stellar system consists of the stars Proxima, alpha Centauri A and B and at least one planet Proxima b. The habitability of Proxima b and any other planets are likely to be significantly influenced by the orbital evolution of…
The earliest confirmed interstellar object, `Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size $\sim 100\;$ m. This was followed by the…
Schneider (2018) explored the possibility that 'Oumuamua is a Solar System object, and concluded that if it is, it must have been scattered by "another, yet unknown planet." I provide an extremely conservative upper limit on post-scattering…
In the future interstellar exploration at near-relativistic speeds will be possible using beamed energy laser propulsion. With this, spacecraft as small as gm mass picospacecraft become candidates for the exploration of deep space, with a…
The globular cluster $\omega$ Centauri (NGC 5139) is a puzzling stellar system harboring several distinct stellar populations whose origin still represents a unique astrophysical challenge. Current scenarios range from primordial chemical…
1I/'Oumuamua (or 1I) and 2I/Borisov (or 2I), the first InterStellar Objects (ISOs) discovered passing through the solar system, have opened up entirely new areas of exobody research. Finding additional ISOs and planning missions to…