Related papers: Quantization of Masses in the Solar System
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,…
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…
Normally one thinks of the motion of the planets around the Sun as a highly classical phenomenon, so that one can neglect quantum gravity in the Solar System. However, classical chaos in the planetary motion amplifies quantum uncertainties…
Probing the interiors of the gas giant planets in our Solar System is not an easy task. It requires a set of accurate measurements combined with theoretical models that are used to infer the planetary composition and its depth dependence.…
Astronomical observations reveal that protoplanetary disks around young stars commonly have ring- and gap-like structures in their dust distributions. These features are associated with pressure bumps trapping dust particles at specific…
Planets intermediate in size between the Earth and Neptune, and orbiting closer to their host stars than Mercury does the Sun, are the most common type of planet revealed by exoplanet surveys over the last quarter century. Results from…
Only three processes, operant during the formation of the Solar System, are responsible for the diversity of matter in the Solar System and are directly responsible for planetary internal-structures, including planetocentric nuclear fission…
The inner solar system possesses a unique orbital structure in which there are no planets inside the Mercury orbit and the mass is concentrated around the Venus and Earth orbits. The origins of these features still remain unclear. We…
With the discovery of now more than 500 exoplanets, we present a statistical analysis of the planetary orbital periods and their relationship to the rotation periods of their parent stars. We test whether the structure of planetary orbits,…
The statistics of extrasolar planetary systems indicate that the default mode of planet formation generates planets with orbital periods shorter than 100 days, and masses substantially exceeding that of the Earth. When viewed in this…
The models that most successfully reproduce the orbital architecture of the Solar System terrestrial planets start from a narrow annulus of material that grows into embryos and then planets. However, it is not clear how this ring model can…
Understanding the origin of life-essential volatiles like N in the Solar System and beyond is critical to evaluate the potential habitability of rocky planets. Whether the inner Solar System planets accreted these volatiles from their…
Rings are ubiquitous around giant planets in our Solar System. They evolve jointly with the nearby satellite system. They could form either during the giant planet formation process or much later, as a result of large scale dynamical…
Jupiter and Saturn formed in a few million years (Haisch et al. 2001) from a gas-dominated protoplanetary disk, and were susceptible to gas-driven migration of their orbits on timescales of only ~100,000 years (Armitage 2007). Hydrodynamic…
It has been proposed recently that the first step in the formation of both rocky and gas giant planets is dust sedimentation into a solid core inside a gas clump (giant planet embryo). The clumps are then assumed to migrate closer to the…
The formation of the solar system's giant planets predated the ultimate epoch of massive impacts that concluded the process of terrestrial planet formation. Following their formation, the giant planets' orbits evolved through an episode of…
Motivated by recent measurements of the free-floating planet mass function at terrestrial masses, we consider the possibility that the solar system may have captured a terrestrial planet early in its history. We show that $\sim 1.2$…
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…
Meteorites, and in particular primitive meteorites (chondrites), are irreplaceable probes of the solar protoplanetary disk. We review their essential properties and endeavour to place them in astrophysical context. The earliest solar system…
The potential existence of a distant planet ("Planet Nine") in the Solar system has prompted a re-think about the evolution of planetary systems. As the Sun transitions from a main sequence star into a white dwarf, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus…