We present empirical evidence, supported by a planet formation model, to show that the curve approximates the location of the so-called photo-evaporation valley. Planets below that curve are likely to have experienced ...

Protoplanetary discs are thought to be truncated at orbital periods of around 10 d. Therefore, the origin of rocky short-period planets with P < 10 d is a puzzle. We propose that many of these planets may form through the ...

The orbital structure of the asteroid belt holds a record of the solar system's dynamical history. The current belt only contains ∼10-3 Earth masses yet the asteroids' orbits are dynamically excited, with a large spread ...

We develop a simple model of planetary formation, focusing our attention on those planets with masses less than 10M⊕ and studying particularly the primordial spin parameters of planets resulting from the accretion of ...

The Centaur population is composed of minor bodies wandering between the giant planets that frequently perform close gravitational encounters with these planets, leading to a chaotic orbital evolution. Recently, the discovery ...

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 ...

A leading model for the origin of super-Earths proposes that planetary embryos migrate inward and pile up on close-in orbits. As large embryos are thought to preferentially form beyond the snowline, this naively predicts ...

Only a small number of exoplanets have been identified in stellar cluster environments. We initiated a high angular resolution direct imaging search using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and its Near-Infrared Camera and ...