Related papers: Euler, Jacobi, and Missions to Comets and Asteroid…
Cometary outgassing can produce torques that change the spin state of the nucleus, influencing the evolution and lifetimes of comets (1,2). If these torques spin up the rotation to the point that centripetal forces exceed the material…
Anisotropic outgassing from comets exerts a torque sufficient to rapidly change the angular momentum of the nucleus, potentially leading to rotational instability. Here, we use empirical measures of spin changes in a sample of comets to…
Comets are made of volatile and refractory material and naturally experience various degrees of sublimation as they orbit around the Sun. This gas release, accompanied by dust, represents what is traditionally described as activity.…
We aim to understand how landslides affect the shape and rotational motion of small rubble planetary bodies. We limit ourselves to axisymmetric global landslides, and take the primordial shape of the body to also be axisymmetric. The…
We study the orbital evolution of a three planet system with masses in the super-Earth regime resulting from the action of tides on the planets induced by the central star which cause orbital circularization. We consider systems either in…
Internal dissipation in a tidally perturbed librating body differs from the tidal dissipation in a steadily spinning rotator. First, libration changes the spectral distribution of tidal damping across the tidal modes, as compared to the…
In this paper we study the orbits of massive bodies moving in the spacetime generated by a spherically symmetric and non-rotating distribution of mass. More specifically, our treatment discusses the more accurate calculation of the…
Disks of low-mass bodies scattered by giant planets to large semi-major axis and constant periapsis orbits are vulnerable to a buckling instability. This instability exponentially grows orbital inclinations, raises periapsis distances, and…
The stellar spin orientation relative to the orbital planes of multiplanet systems are becoming accessible to observations. Here, we analyze and classify different types of spin-orbit evolution in compact multiplanet systems perturbed by an…
Atmospheric tides can strongly affect the rotational dynamics of planets. In the family of Earth-like planets, such as Venus, this physical mechanism coupled with solid tides makes the angular velocity evolve over long timescales and…
We consider several protostellar systems where either a precessing jet or at least two misaligned jets have been observed. We assume that the precession of jets is caused by tidal interactions in noncoplanar binary systems. For Cep E, V1331…
Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…
We construct models of highly-inclined (``polar'') rings in an external potential including both self--gravity and dissipation due to a drag force. We adopt the oblate spheroidal scale--free logarithmic potential with axis ratio $q=0.85$…
We have considered precession in accretion disks in which a second moment of inertia relative to an axis perpendicular to the axis of rotation may be very important. This formalism, that takes into account the precession contribution to the…
Misalignments between the orbital planes of planets and the equatorial planes of their host stars have been observed in our solar system, in transiting exoplanets, and in the orbital planes of debris discs. We present a mechanism that…
The discovery of many giant planets in close-in orbits and the effect of planetary and stellar tides in their subsequent orbital decay have been extensively studied in the context of planetary formation and evolution theories. Planets…
Surface shedding of an asteroid is a failure mode where surface materials fly off due to strong centrifugal forces beyond the critical spin period, while the internal structure does not deform significantly. This paper proposes a possible…
The first interstellar object, 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua), exhibited several unique properties, including an extreme aspect ratio, a lack of typical cometary volatiles, and a deviation from a Keplerian trajectory. Several authors have…
We present a simple model which allows us to explain the physical nature of the oscillating entropy. We consider an ensemble of qubits interacting with thermal two-level systems. The entropy of the qubits oscillates between zero and the…
The interaction between a planet located in the inner region of a disc and the warped outer region is studied. We consider the stage of evolution after the planet has cleared-out a gap, so that the planetary orbit evolves only under the…