Related papers: Capture of Interstellar Objects and Binaries
The Robo-AO \textit{Kepler} Planetary Candidate Survey is observing every \textit{Kepler} planet candidate host star with laser adaptive optics imaging to search for blended nearby stars, which may be physically associated companions and/or…
A small admixture of dark matter gravitationally bound to the proto-Solar gas cloud could be adiabatically contracted into Earth-crossing orbits with a local density comparable to (or even exceeding) the Galactic halo density. We show that…
The vast diversity of planetary systems detected to date is defying our capability of understanding their formation and evolution. Well-defined volume-limited surveys are the best tool at our disposal to tackle the problem, via the…
While regular archive searches can find images at a fixed location, they cannot find images of moving targets such as asteroids. The Solar System Object Search (SSOS) at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre allows users to search for images…
When a dark matter halo falls into a more massive object and becomes a subhalo, it typically loses much of its mass through tidal stripping. The reverse process is also possible in principle. The subhalo may gravitationally capture material…
The angle between the rotation and orbital axes of stars in binary systems -- the obliquity -- is an important indicator of how these systems form and evolve but few such measurements exist. We combine the sample of astrometric orbital…
(abridged)Multiple systems for which the astrometric and spectroscopic orbit are known offer the unique possibility of determining the distance to these systems directly without any assumptions. They are therefore ideal objects for a…
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…
We use Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the number of extrasolar planets that are directly detectable in the solar-neighborhood using current and forthcoming high-contrast imaging instruments. Our calculations take into account the…
Young stellar objects (YSOs) may not accumulate their mass steadily, as was previously thought, but in a series of violent events manifesting themselves as sharp stellar brightening. These events can be caused by fragmentation due to…
We investigate resonant capture of small bodies by planets that migrate inwards, using analytic arguments and three-body integrations. If the orbits of the planet and the small body are initially circular and coplanar, the small body is…
Our purpose is to place firm observational constraints on the three most widely used theoretical models for the spatial configuration of the large-scale interstellar magnetic field in the Galactic disk, namely, the ring, the axisymmetric…
The Kepler space mission discovered about a dozen planets orbiting around binary stars systems. Most of these circumbinary planets lie near their instability boundaries at about 3 to 5 binary separations. Past attempts to match these final…
We have investigated the probability of temporary capture of asteroids in eccentric orbits by a planet in a circular or an eccentric orbit through analytical and numerical calculations. We found that in the limit of the circular orbit, the…
The findings of more than 350 extrasolar planets, most of them nontransiting Hot Jupiters, have revealed correlations between the metallicity of the main-sequence (MS) host stars and planetary incidence. This connection can be used to…
A commonly noted feature of the population of multi-planet extrasolar systems is the rarity of planet pairs in low-order mean-motion resonances. We revisit the physics of resonance capture via convergent disk-driven migration. We point out…
Since July 2014, the ESA Gaia mission has been surveying the entire sky down to magnitude 20.7 in the visible. In addition to the millions of stars, thousands of Solar System Objects (SSOs) are observed daily. By comparing their positions…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
Young M-type binaries are particularly useful for precise isochronal dating by taking advantage of their extended pre-main sequence evolution. Orbital monitoring of these low-mass objects becomes essential in constraining their fundamental…
Over the course of its motion through the Galaxy, our solar system has encountered many interstellar environments of varying characteristics. Interstellar medium (ISM) density variations spanning seven orders of magnitude are commonly seen…