The Small Satellites of the Solar System: a White Paper Commissioned by Sbag for the 2011-2020 Planetary Decadal Survey

Constraining Solar System impact history and evolution of the terrestrial planets with exploration of and samples from the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin A white-paper submitted for consideration by the NRC Planetary Science Decadal Survey, Inner Planets Panel

Direct Detection and Spectroscopic Characterization of Giant Extrasolar Planets A white paper to the 2010 Decadal Survey

1. Introduction The study of exoplanets is in its initial stage of exploration, a stage that will persist through 2010-2020. During the upcoming decade, direct detection—spatially separating the light of a planet from its parent star—will become increasingly important. Already, results (Kalas et al 2008, Marois et al 2008) show the power of this technique; with the advent of AO coronagraphs suc...

Exponential law as a more compatible model to describe orbits of planetary systems

  According to the Titus-Bode law, orbits of planets in the solar system obey a geometric progression. Many investigations have been launched to improve this law. In this paper, we apply square and exponential models to planets of solar system, moons of planets, and some extra solar systems, and compare them with each other.

Quantification of Fluorescence Emission from Extraterrestrial Materials and Interference to Micro-beam Cw 532 Nm Raman Spectroscopy

Why meteorites? Meteorites and the samples returned by planetary missions supplied the extraterrestrial materials for human beings to study the solar system and beyond far away from Earth. They provide chemical and mineral compositions representing the planetary bodies in solar system, e.g., planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, and near-Earth objects. They can also serve for testing instrume...

Planetary Satellites, Asteroids, Comets and Meteors

Asteroids, mainly rocky or metallic bodies in the inner solar system, orbit the Sun in various distinct populations (planet-crossers, main-belt asteroids, trans-Neptunian Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects, Centaurs in the outer planetary region) between which there are transfers over substantial timescales. For example the main belt is the main reservoir replenishing the Earth-crossing asteroids, t...