Related papers: How special is the Solar System?
Understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of habitable planets in extrasolar planetary systems is a challenging task. In this respect, systems with multiple giant planets and/or multiple stars present special complications. The…
The standard picture of planet formation posits that giant gas planets are over-grown rocky planets massive enough to attract enormous gas atmospheres. It has been shown recently that the opposite point of view is physically plausible: the…
Models of planet formation are built on underlying physical processes. In order to make sense of the origin of the planets we must first understand the origin of their building blocks. This review comes in two parts. The first part presents…
Most observed extrasolar planets have masses similar to, but orbits very different from, the gas giants of our solar system. Many are much closer to their parent stars than would have been expected and their orbits are often rather…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
We review the observations of extrasolar planets, ongoing developments in theories of planet formation, orbital migration, and the evolution of multiplanet systems.
Planets are typically thought to form in protoplanetary disks left over from protostellar disk of their newly formed host star. However, an additional planetary formation route may exist in old evolved binary systems. In such systems…
We know that giant planets played a crucial role in the making of our Solar System. The discovery of giant planets orbiting other stars is a formidable opportunity to learn more about these objects, what is their composition, how various…
Observational surveys for extrasolar planets probe the diverse outcomes of planet formation and evolution. These surveys measure the frequency of planets with different masses, sizes, orbital characteristics, and host star properties. Small…
All circumbinary planets currently detected are in orbits that are almost coplanar to the binary orbit. While misaligned circumbinary planets are more difficult to detect, observations of polar aligned circumbinary gas and debris disks…
Understanding the concept of habitability is related to an evolutionary knowledge of the particular planet-in-question. Additional indications so-called "systemic aspects" of the planetary system as a whole governs a particular planet's…
An impressive bulk of multiple astronomical observations indicates that there are plenty of objects in the universe with the age which cannot be explained by the conventional theory. A model is considered which successfully describes all…
Since the formulation of the problem by Newton, and during three centuries, astronomers and mathematicians have sought to demonstrate the stability of the Solar System. Thanks to the numerical experiments of the last two decades, we know…
All the four giant planets in our Solar System have rings, but their characteristics are very different. The rings consist of a number of small particles, although individual particles have not been directly imaged. Near the central planet,…
Just fourteen years ago the Solar System represented the only known planetary system in the Galaxy, and conceptions of planet formation were shaped by this sample of one. Since then, 320 planets have been discovered orbiting 276 individual…
The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas giants…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
The present dynamical configuration of planets in binary star systems may not reflect their formation process since the binary orbit may have changed in the past after the planet formation process was completed. An observed binary system…
A new theoretical hypothesis on the origin and formation of the solar and extrasolar planetary systems is summarized and briefly discussed in the light of recent detections of extrasolar planets, and studies of shock wave interaction with…