相关论文: Solar System: Sifting through the debris

Two populations of minor bodies in the outer Solar System remain particularly elusive: Scattered Disk objects and Sedna-like objects. These populations are important dynamical tracers, and understanding the details of their spatial- and…

Looking at the orbits of small bodies with large semimajor axes, we are compelled to see patterns. Some of these patterns are noted as strong indicators of new or hidden processes in the outer Solar System, others are substantially…

Due to the foreground extinction of the Milky Way, galaxies appear increasingly fainter the closer they lie to the Galactic Equator, creating a "zone of avoidance" of about 25% in the distribution of optically visible galaxies. A…

Debris discs are commonly detected orbiting main-sequence stars, yet little is known regarding their fate as the star evolves to become a giant. Recent observations of radial velocity detected planets orbiting giant stars highlight this…

Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…

Although the present-day orbital distribution of minor bodies that go around the Sun between the orbit of Neptune and the Kuiper Cliff is well understood, past ~50 au from the Sun, our vision gets blurred as objects become fainter and…

In recent years it has coming to light that the early outer Solar System likely might have somewhat more planets than today. However, to date there is unknown what a former giant planet might in fact have represented and where its orbit may…

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…

Debris disks are evidence that stars harbor reservoirs of dust-producing plantesimals on spatial scales similar the solar system. Debris disks present a wide range of sizes and structural features and there is growing evidence that, in some…

Using ISO-ISOPHOT we carried out a survey of almost 150 stars to search for evidence of emission from dust orbiting young main sequence stars, both in clusters and isolated systems. Over half of the detections are new examples of dusty…

Exoplanets, short for `extra solar planets', are planets outside our solar system. They are objects with masses less than around 15 Jupiter-masses that orbit stars other than the Sun. They are small enough so they can not burn deuterium in…

We study the capture of galactic dark matter particles in the Solar System produced by rotation of Jupiter. It is shown that the capture cross section is much larger than the area of Jupiter orbit being inversely diverging at small particle…

Mindful of the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury discovered by U. Le Verrier in the second half of the nineteenth century and its successful explanation by A. Einstein with his General Theory of Relativity in the early years of the…

Motivated by a pilot experiment conducted by F.Vannucci et al. during a solar eclipse, we work out the geometry governing the radiative decays of solar neutrinos. Surprisingly, although a smaller proportion of the photons can be detected,…

Direct imaging surveys have found that long-period super-Jupiters are rare. By contrast, recent modeling of the widespread gaps in protoplanetary disks revealed by ALMA suggests an abundant population of smaller Neptune to Jupiter-mass…

Thousands of small bodies, known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), orbit the Sun beyond Neptune. TNOs are remnants of the planets' formation from a disc of gas and dust, so it is puzzling that they move mostly on eccentric orbits inclined…

Main sequence stars, like the Sun, are often found to be orbited by circumstellar material that can be categorized into two groups, planets and debris. The latter is made up of asteroids and comets, as well as the dust and gas derived from…

Stars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, ten to twenty per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to…

This paper describes a novel activity to model the dynamics of a Jupiter-mass, trans-Neptunian planet of a highly eccentric orbit. Despite a history rooted in modern astronomy, "Planet X", a hypothesised hidden planet lurking in our outer…

Debris discs reveal the architectures and dynamical histories of planetary systems. Sub-millimetre observations trace large dust grains within debris discs, revealing their bulk properties. Debris discs have so far only been detected around…