Related papers: The Distribution of Earth-Impacting Interstellar O…
Tidal locking of planets to their host stars results in an atmospheric circulation with a hotspot fixed to the frame of reference of the planet. On the other hand, asynchronously rotating planets feature moving hotspots either lagging or…
As a planet transits the face of a star, it accelerates along the line-of-sight. The changing delay in the propagation of photons produces an apparent deceleration of the planet across the sky throughout the transit. This persistent…
Exoplanetary systems hosting multiple low-mass planets are thought to have experienced dynamical instability, during which planet-planet collisions and mergers occur; these collisions can impart substantial amount of angular momentum to the…
Thermal infrared observations are the most effective way to measure asteroid diameter and albedo for a large number of near-Earth objects. Major surveys like NEOWISE, NEOSurvey, ExploreNEOs, and NEOLegacy find a small fraction of high…
We analyze the properties of searches devoted to finding planetary transits by observing simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters, open clusters, and the Galactic bulge. We develop the analytic tools necessary to predict the number…
We quantify the atmospheric mass loss during planet formation by examining the contributions to atmospheric loss from both giant impacts and planetesimal accretion. Giant impacts cause global motion of the ground. Using analytic…
We calculate the present-day impact flux on Mars and its variation over the Martian year, using the current data on the orbital distribution of known Mars-crossing minor planets. We adapt the {\"O}pik-Wetherill formulation for calculating…
Gravitational scattering between massive planets has been invoked to explain the eccentricity distribution of extrasolar planets. For scattering to occur, the planets must either form in -- or migrate into -- an unstable configuration. In…
Impacts may have had a significant effect on the atmospheric chemistry of the early Earth. Reduced phases in the impactor (e.g., metallic iron) can reduce the planet's H$_2$O inventory to produce massive atmospheres rich in H$_2$. Whilst…
Recent astronomical observations, in particular from the Kepler and TESS missions and their related follow-ups, have revealed an abundance of exoplanets in the size range between Neptune (4 Earth radii) and Earth (1 Earth radii ), as well…
The questions of how planets form and how common Earth-like planets are can be addressed by measuring the distribution of exoplanet masses and orbital periods. We report the occurrence rate of close-in planets (with orbital periods less…
The conjecture is considered that every body induces the wave field which imposes oscillations on the gravitational potential of a body. The function for oscillations is chosen to prevent the gravitational collapse of the matter at the…
We investigate the estimation of orbital parameters by least-$\chi^2$ Keplerian fits to radial velocity (RV) data using synthetic data sets. We find that while the fitted period is fairly accurate, the best-fit eccentricity and $M_p\sin i$…
The Earth's density distribution can be approximately considered piecewise continuous at the scale of two-flavor oscillations of typical solar neutrinos, such as the beryllium-7 and boron-8 neutrinos. This quite general assumption appears…
The equilibrium rotation of tidally evolved "Earth-like" extra-solar planets is often assumed to be synchronous with their orbital mean motion. The same assumption persisted for Mercury and Venus until radar observations revealed their true…
Following the suggestion of Black (1997) that some massive extrasolar planets may be associated with the tail of the distribution of stellar companions, we investigate a scenario in which 5 < N < 100 planetary mass objects are assumed to…
By the time icy objects grow to about the mass of Europa and silicate bodies grow to approximately lunar mass, a large high-speed impact can generate an intact melt region that allows the dense material to gravitationally segregate, forming…
We present a mathematical method to statistically decouple the effects of unknown inclination angles on the mass distribution of exoplanets that have been discovered using radial-velocity techniques. The method is based on the distribution…
We develop an idealized dynamical model to predict the typical properties of outer extrasolar planetary systems, at radii beyond 5 AU. Our hypothesis is that dynamical evolution in outer planetary systems is controlled by a combination of…
The displacement of star images by atmospheric refraction observed by an Earth-bound telescope is dominated by a familiar term proportional to the product of the tangent of the zenith angle by the refractivity at the ground. The manuscript…