Related papers: The Possible Belts for Extrasolar Planetary System…
In most extrasolar planetary systems, the present orbits of known giant planets admit the existence of stable terrestrial planets. Those same giant planets, however, have typically eccentric orbits that hint at violent early dynamics less…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
The orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) can indicate the existence of an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system. Here, we used N-body computer simulations to investigate the effects of a hypothetical Kuiper Belt planet (KBP) on…
Orbits of known extrasolar planets that are located outside the tidal circularization regions of their parent stars are often substantially eccentric. By contrast, planetary orbits in our Solar System are approximately circular, reflecting…
Observations of the Kuiper Belt indicate that a larger than expected percentage of KBO's (approximately 8 out of 500) are in binary pairs. The formation and survival of such objects presents a conundrum [1]. Two competing theories have been…
The origin of the highly eccentric, inclined, and resonance-locked orbit of Pluto has long been a puzzle. A possible explanation has been proposed recently [Malhotra, R., {\it Nature} 365:819-21 (1993)] which suggests that these…
One notable example of exoplanet diversity is the population of circumbinary planets, which orbit around both stars of a binary star system. There are so far only 16 known circumbinary exoplanets, all of which lie in the same orbital plane…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
Extrasolar planetary systems range from hot Jupiters out to icy comet belts more distant than Pluto. We explain this diversity in a model where the mass of solids in the primordial circumstellar disk dictates the outcome. The star retains…
The small bodies in the Kuiper Belt region of the distant Solar System are leftovers from planet formation. Their orbital distribution today tells us about how giant planets migrated, while their surface properties, shapes, and sizes tell…
The population of the Kuiper Belt within 50 AU of the Sun has likely been severely depleted by gravitational perturbations from the giant planets, particularly Neptune. The density of Kuiper Belt objects is expected to be two orders of…
Since planets were first discovered outside our own Solar System in 1992 (around a pulsar) and in 1995 (around a main sequence star), extrasolar planet studies have become one of the most dynamic research fields in astronomy. Now that more…
We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer Solar System planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared to traditional methods because acceleration…
Our current knowledge of the dynamical structure of the Kuiper Belt is reviewed here. Numerical results on long term orbital evolution and dynamical mechanisms underlying the transport of objects out of the Kuiper Belt are discussed.…
Instabilities and strong dynamical interactions between multiple giant planets have been proposed as a possible explanation for the surprising orbital properties of extrasolar planetary systems. In particular, dynamical instabilities seem…
The study of our Solar System -- its formation, evolution, and long-term stability -- has been ongoing for centuries and is now a standard part of scientific education. While the formation of other Solar-like exoplanetary systems is…
The recent discoveries of giant planets around nearby stars have galvanized the planetary science community, astronomers, and the public at large. Since {\it direct} detection is now feasible, and is suggested by the recent acquisition of…
The Kepler mission has discovered a plethora of multiple transiting planet candidate exosystems, many of which feature putative pairs of planets near mean motion resonance commensurabilities. Identifying potentially resonant systems could…
We discuss the current knowledge of the Solar system, focusing on bodies in the outer regions, on the information they provide concerning Solar system formation, and on the possible relationships that may exist between our system and the…
The hypothesis that a massive Planet Nine exists in the outer solar system on a distant eccentric orbit was inspired by observations showing that the objects with the most distant eccentric orbits in the Kuiper belt have orbits which are…