Related papers: Satellite formation around the largest asteroids
More than a half of asteroids in the main belt have irregular shapes with the ratios of the minor to major axis lengths less than 0.6. One of the mechanisms to create such shapes is collisions between asteroids. The relationship between…
Binary asteroid formation is a highly complex process, which has been highlighted with recent observations of satellites with unexpected shapes, such as the oblate Dimorphos by the NASA DART mission and the contact binary Selam by NASA's…
Single massive satellites are of great observational interest, as they can produce prominent and potentially detectable signatures. For terrestrial planets and super-Earths, giant impacts in the late stages of formation may generate dense…
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution…
Planetary satellites are an integral part of the heirarchy of planetary systems. Here we make two predictions concerning their formation. First, primordial satellites, which have an array of distinguishing characteristics, form only around…
We investigated the formation and evolution of satellite systems in a cold, extended circumplanetary disc around a 10 $M_{\rm{Jupiter}}$ gas giant which was formed by gravitational instability at 50\,AU from its star. The disc parameters…
The origin of the regular satellites ties directly to planetary formation in that the satellites form in gas and dust disks around the giant planets and may be viewed as mini-solar systems, involving a number of closely related underlying…
In the past decade, the number of known binary near-Earth asteroids has more than quadrupled and the number of known large main belt asteroids with satellites has doubled. Half a dozen triple asteroids have been discovered, and the…
Hydrodynamic simulations of a giant impact to proto-Uranus indicated that such an impact could tilt its rotational axis and produce a circumplanetary debris disk beyond the corotation radius of Uranus. However, whether Uranian satellites…
Several stars show deep transits consistent with discs of roughly 1 Solar radius seen at moderate inclinations, likely surrounding planets on eccentric orbits. We show that this configuration arises naturally as a result of planet-planet…
Outer satellites of the planets have distant, eccentric orbits that can be highly inclined or even retrograde relative to the equatorial planes of their planets. These irregular orbits cannot have formed by circumplanetary accretion and are…
All four giant planets in the Solar system possess irregular satellites, characterized by large, highly eccentric and/or inclined orbits that are distinct from the nearly circular, uninclined orbits of the regular satellites. This…
Asteroids and meteorites provide key evidence on the formation of planetesimals in the Solar System. Asteroids are traditionally thought to form in a bottom-up process by coagulation within a population of initially km-scale planetesimals.…
The size distribution of asteroids in the solar system suggests that they formed top-down, with 100-1000 km bodies forming from the gravitational collapse of dense clumps of small solid particles. We investigate the conditions under which…
The number of planetary satellites around solid objects in the inner Solar System is small either because they are difficult or unlikely to form, or that they do not survive for astronomical timescales. Here we conduct a pilot study on the…
The formation of satellites is thought to be a natural by-product of planet formation in our Solar System, and thus, moons of extrasolar planets (exomoons) may be abundant in extrasolar planetary systems, as well. Exomoons have yet to be…
When a planetary tidal disk -like Saturn's rings- spreads beyond the Roche radius (inside which planetary tides prevent aggregation), satellites form and migrate away. Here, we show that most regular satellites in the solar system probably…
Recent analyses have shown that the concluding stages of giant planet formation are accompanied by the development of large-scale meridional flow of gas inside the planetary Hill sphere. This circulation feeds a circumplanetary disk that…
We explore binary asteroid formation by spin-up and rotational disruption considering the NASA DART mission's encounter with the Didymos-Dimorphos binary, which was the first small binary visited by a spacecraft. Using a suite of $N$-body…
Irregular satellites are the minor bodies found orbiting all four Solar System giant planets, with large semi-major axes, eccentricities, and inclinations. Previous studies have determined that the Solar System's irregular satellites are…