相关论文: How Common are Extrasolar, Late Heavy Bombardments…

Most of the observed extrasolar planets are found on tight and often eccentric orbits. The high eccentricities are not easily explained by planet-formation models, which predict that planets should be on rather circular orbits. Here we…

Many observed giant planets lie on eccentric orbits. Such orbits could be the result of strong scatterings with other giant planets. The same dynamical instability that produces these scatterings may also cause habitable planets in interior…

The detectability of planetesimal impacts on imaged exoplanets can be measured using Jupiter during the 1994 comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 events as a proxy. By integrating the whole planet flux with and without impact spots, the effect of the…

The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…

High-energy radiation caused by exoplanetary space weather events from planet-hosting stars can play a crucial role in conditions promoting or destroying habitability in addition to the conventional factors. In this paper, we present the…

Recent models of solar system formation suggest that a dynamical instability among the giant planets happened within the first 100 Myr after disk dispersal, perhaps before the Moon-forming impact. As a direct consequence, a bombardment of…

Young stars are mostly found in dense stellar environments, and even our own Solar system may have formed in a star cluster. Here, we numerically explore the evolution of planetary systems similar to our own Solar system in star clusters.…

Stellar activity can reveal itself in the form of radiation (eg, enhanced X-ray coronal emission, flares) and particles (eg, winds, coronal mass ejections). Together, these phenomena shape the space weather around (exo)planets. As stars…

Passing stars can perturb the Oort Cloud, triggering comet showers and potentially extinction events on Earth. We combine velocity measurements for the recently discovered, nearby, low-mass binary system WISE J072003.20-084651.2 ("Scholz's…

The majority of stars form in star clusters and many are thought to have planetary companions. We demonstrate that multi-planet systems are prone to instabilities as a result of frequent stellar encounters in these star clusters much more…

The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft has flown into the most dense and previously unexplored region of our solar system's zodiacal cloud. While PSP does not have a dedicated dust detector, multiple instruments onboard are sensitive to…

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) directed at Earth from within a few kpc may have damaged the biosphere, primarily though changes in atmospheric chemistry which admit greatly increased Solar UV. However, GRBs are highly variable in spectrum and…

Cosmic rays can penetrate planetary atmospheres driving the formation of prebiotic molecules, which are important for the origin of life. We calculate the Galactic cosmic ray fluxes in the habitable zone of five nearby, well-studied…

Exoplanet surveys have confirmed one of humanity's (and all teenagers') worst fears: we are weird. If our Solar System were observed with present-day Earth technology -- to put our system and exoplanets on the same footing -- Jupiter is the…

Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…

Asteroid impacts with the Earth may have played an essential role in the emergence of life on Earth through their creation of favorable niches for life, changes to the atmosphere and delivery of water. Consequently, we suggest two potential…

The late stages of terrestrial planet formation are dominated by giant impacts that collectively influence the growth, composition and habitability of any planets that form. Hitherto, numerical models designed to explore these late stage…

Every Galactic environment is characterized by a stellar density and a velocity dispersion. With this information from literature, we simulated flyby encounters for several Galactic regions, numerically calculating stellar trajectories as…

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…

Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? We consider the habitability of the Universe throughout cosmic history, and conservatively restrict our attention to the context of "life as we know it" and…