Related papers: Capture of Interstellar Objects and Binaries
Context. The populations of small bodies of the Solar System (asteroids, comets, Kuiper-Belt objects) are used to constrain the origin and evolution of the Solar System. Both their orbital distribution and composition distribution are…
We present the observational results of a near-infrared survey of a large sample of Class I protostars designed to determine the Class I binary separation distribution from ~100 AU to ~5000 AU. We have selected targets from a new sample of…
Recent ultraviolet and X-ray observations of intergalactic OVI and OVII absorption systems along lines of sight to bright quasars have opened a new window onto the ``warm-hot intergalactic medium'' (WHIM). These systems appear to provide a…
We show that if FU Orionis objects harbour hot Jupiters embedded in their discs, the resulting non-axisymmetric dissipation profile in the disc would be manifest as time-dependent distortions in the absorption line profiles of these…
The formation of the Inner Oort Cloud (IOC) - a vast halo of icy bodies residing far beyond Neptune's orbit - is an expected outcome of the solar system's primordial evolution within a stellar cluster. Recent models have shown that the…
A heliospheric termination shock (HTS) surrounds our solar system at approximately 100 astronomical units from the Sun, where the expanding solar wind (SW) is compressed and heated before encountering the interstellar medium.…
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)…
Motivated by recent measurements of the free-floating planet mass function at terrestrial masses, we consider the possibility that the solar system may have captured a terrestrial planet early in its history. We show that $\sim 1.2$…
Dense astrophysical environments like globular clusters and galactic nuclei can host hyperbolic encounters of black holes which can lead to gravitational-wave driven capture. There are several astrophysical models which predict a fraction…
The low Galactic halo is enveloped by a sheath of ionized, low-metallicity gas, which can provide a substantial (1 M_sun/yr) cooling inflow to replenish star formation in the disk. Using absorption spectra from the HST and FUSE toward 37…
We consider planetary systems evolving under the effect of a Stokes-type dissipative force mimicking the outcome of a type II migration process. As inward migration proceeds and the planets follow the circular family (they start on circular…
Mean motion resonances are a common feature of both our own Solar System and of extrasolar planetary systems. Bodies can be trapped in resonance when their orbital semi-major axes change, for instance when they migrate through a…
Gravitational scattering events, in which the path of an interstellar object is deflected by a pulsar or the solar system, give rise to reflex motion which can potentially be detected using pulsar timing. We determine the form of the timing…
The detection of intermediate mass black holes in the centres of globular clusters is highly controversial, as complementary observational methods often deliver significantly different results. In order to understand these discrepancies, we…
All transiting planet observations are at risk of contamination from nearby, unresolved stars. Blends dilute the transit signal, causing the planet to appear smaller than it really is, or produce a false positive detection when the target…
We propose that the ``isolated'' planetary mass objects observed by Zapatero Osorio et al in the $\sigma$ Orionis cluster might actually be in orbit around invisible stellar mass companions such as mirror stars. Mirror matter is expected to…
Supersonically Induced Gas Objects (SIGOs), are structures with little to no dark matter component predicted to exist in regions of the Universe with large relative velocities between baryons and dark matter at the time of recombination.…
Dense stellar environments as hosts of ongoing star formation increase the probability of gravitational encounters among stellar systems during the early stages of evolution. Stellar interaction may occur through non-recurring, hyperbolic…
The heliosphere serves as a probe of interstellar material (ISM) close to the Sun. Measurements of ISM inside and outside of the heliosphere show that we reside in typical warm partially ionized ISM that can be successfully modeled using…
The astrometric signature imposed by a planet on its primary increases substantially towards longer periods (proportinal to P^2/3), so that long-period planets can be more easily detected, in principle. For example, a one Solar-mass (M_Sun)…