Related papers: Jupiter's Obliquity and a Long-lived Circumplaneta…
Giant planets grow and acquire their gas envelope during the disk phase. At the time of the discovery of giant planets in their host disk, it is important to understand the interplay between the host disk and the envelope and…
Motivated by recent spectroscopic observations suggesting that atmospheres of some extrasolar giant-planets are carbon-rich, i.e. carbon/oxygen ratio (C/O) $\ge$ 1, we find that the whole set of compositional data for Jupiter is consistent…
The origin of the regular satellites ties directly to planetary formation in that the satellites form in gas and dust disks around the giant planets and may be viewed as mini-solar systems, involving a number of closely related underlying…
Two leading hypotheses for hot Jupiter migration are disk migration and high-eccentricity migration (HEM). Stellar obliquity is commonly used to distinguish them, as high obliquity often accompanies HEM. However, low obliquity does not…
The classical Laplace surface defines the location of circular particle orbits that do not undergo nodal precession around a planet with some obliquity. Close to the planet the surface coincides with the equator of the planet, while far…
The Sun's equator and the planets' orbital planes are nearly aligned, which is presumably a consequence of their formation from a single spinning gaseous disk. For exoplanetary systems this well-aligned configuration is not guaranteed:…
The wealth of observational data about Jupiter and Saturn provides strong constraints to guide our understanding of the formation of giant planets. The size of the core and the total amount of heavy elements in the envelope have been…
Stars with hot Jupiters sometimes have high obliquities, which are possible relics of hot Jupiter formation. Based on the characteristics of systems with and without high obliquities, it is suspected that obliquities are tidally damped when…
We examine the conditions under which the disks of gas and dust orbiting young gas giant planets are sufficiently conducting to experience turbulence driven by the magneto-rotational instability. By modeling the ionization and conductivity…
In the search for life beyond our Solar system, attention should be focused on those planets that have the potential to maintain habitable conditions over the prolonged periods of time needed for the emergence and expansion of life as we…
Anderson & Schubert (2007, Science,317,1384) proposed that Saturn's rotation period can be ascertained by minimizing the dynamic heights of the 100 mbar isosurface with respect to the geoid; they derived a rotation period of 10h 32m 35s. We…
We use numerical simulations to model the migration of massive planets at small radii and compare the results with the known properties of 'hot Jupiters' (extrasolar planets with semi-major axes a < 0.1 AU). For planet masses Mp sin i > 0.5…
We have detected the Rossiter-Mclaughlin effect during a transit of WASP-47b, the only known hot Jupiter with close planetary companions. By combining our spectroscopic observations with Kepler photometry, we show that the projected stellar…
Radial velocity surveys suggest that the Solar System may be unusual and that Jupiter-like planets have a frequency <20% around solar-type stars. However, they may be much more common in one of the closest associations in the solar…
We provide evidence that the obliquities of stars with close-in giant planets were initially nearly random, and that the low obliquities that are often observed are a consequence of star-planet tidal interactions. The evidence is based on…
We study the possibility that the mutual interactions between Jupiter and Saturn prevented Type II migration from driving these planets much closer to the Sun. Our work extends previous results by Masset and Snellgrove (2001), by exploring…
We investigate the obliquity and spin period of Earth-Moon like systems after 4.5 Gyr of tidal evolution with various satellite masses and initial planetary obliquity and discuss their relations to the habitability of the planet. We find…
We investigate tidal dissipation of obliquity in hot Jupiters. Assuming an initial random orientation of obliquity and parameters relevant to the observed population, the obliquity of hot Jupiters does not evolve to purely aligned systems.…
Recent measurements of Jupiter's gravitational moments by the Juno spacecraft and seismology of Saturn's rings suggest that the primordial composition gradients in the deep interior of these planets have persisted since their formation. One…
Europa is believed to have formed near the very end of Jupiter's own accretion, within a circumplanetary disk of gas and solid particles. We review the formation of the Galilean satellites in the context of current constraints and…