相关论文: Is there an exoplanet in the Solar System?

Whereas the Solar System has Mars and Europa as the best candidates for finding fossil/extant life as we know it - based on complex carbon compounds and liquid water - the 263 (non-pulsar) planetary systems around other stars as known at 15…

The observed physical clustering of the orbits of small bodies in the distant Kuiper Belt (TNOs) has recently prompted the prediction of an additional planet in the outer solar system. Since the initial posing of the hypothesis, the effects…

The outer solar system exhibits an anomalous pattern of orbital clustering, characterized by an approximate alignment of the apsidal lines and angular momentum vectors of distant, long-term stable Kuiper belt objects. One explanation for…

Several papers have recently suggested the possible presence of a ninth planet (Planet X) that might explain the gravitational perturbations of a number of detached Trans-Neptunian objects. To analyze the possibility further, we have…

The Solar System hosts the most studied and best understood major and minor planetary bodies - and the only extraterrestrial bodies to have been visited by spacecraft. The Solar System therefore provides important constraints on both the…

A recent proposal for the detection of a hypothetical gravitating body 500 AU from the Sun (termed Planet 9) calls for a fleet of near-relativistic spacecraft, equipped with high-precision clocks, to be sent to a region where the object is…

Batygin and Brown (2016) have suggested the existence of a new Solar System planet supposed to be responsible for the perturbation of eccentric orbits of small outer bodies. The main challenge is now to detect and characterize this putative…

In this thesis, I explore two topics in exoplanet science. The first is the prevalence of Earth-size planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. To determine the occurrence of planets having different sizes, orbital periods, and other properties, I…

The hypothesized Planet Nine is thought to reside in the distant outer solar system, potentially explaining various anomalies in the orbits of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs). In this work, we present a targeted observational search…

In recent years several planets have been discovered at wide orbits (>100 AU) around their host stars. Theoretical studies encounter difficulties in explaining their formation and origin. Here we propose a novel scenario for the production…

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…

Gravitational interactions in star-forming regions are capable of disrupting and destroying planetary systems, as well as creating new ones. In particular, a planet can be stolen, where it is directly exchanged between passing stars during…

At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…

Most stars, perhaps even all stars, form in crowded stellar environments. Such star forming regions typically dissolve within ten million years, while others remain bound as stellar groupings for hundreds of millions to billions of years,…

A number of authors have argued that the Sun must have been born in a cluster of no more than about 1000 stars, on the basis that, in a larger cluster, close encounters between the Sun and other stars would have truncated the outer Solar…

An instability among the giant planets' orbits can match many aspects of the Solar System's current orbital architecture. We explore the possibility that this dynamical instability was triggered by the close passage of a star or substellar…

The sample of known exoplanets is strongly biased to masses larger than the ones of the giant gaseous planets of the solar system. Recently, the discovery of two extrasolar planets of considerably lower masses around the nearby stars GJ 436…

Following the suggestion of Black (1997) that some massive extrasolar planets may be associated with the tail of the distribution of stellar companions, we investigate a scenario in which 5 < N < 100 planetary mass objects are assumed to…

Planets that form around stars born in dense stellar environments are subject to dynamical perturbations from other stars in the system. These perturbations will strip outer planets, forming a population of free-floating planets, some of…

With the high number of extrasolar planets discovered by now, it becomes possible to constrain theoretical formation models in a statistical sense. This paper is the first in a series in which we carry out a large number of planet…