Cometary showers and unseen solar companions (reply)

Low-Mass Companions to Solar-Type Stars

We present preliminary results from a coronagraphic survey of young nearby Sun-like stars using the Palomar and Keck adaptive optics systems. We have targeted 251 solar analogs (F5–K5) at 20–160 pc from the Sun, spanning the 3–3000 Myr age range. The youngest (<500 Myr) ≈100 of these have been imaged with deeper exposures to search for sub-stellar companions. The deep survey is sensitive to bro...

Distribution of Retrograde Cometary Dust Particles in the Solar System

Cometary Diversity and Cometary Families 1.1 Introduction

Comets are classified from their orbital characteristics into two separate classes: nearly-isotropic, mainly long-period comets and ecliptic, short-period comets. Members from the former class are coming from the Oort cloud. Those of the latter class were first believed to have migrated from the Kuiper belt where they could have been accreted in situ, but recent orbital evolution simulations sh...

Three newly-discovered M-dwarf companions of Solar Neighbourhood stars

We present low-resolution spectroscopy of newly-discovered candidate companions to three stars in the Solar Neighbourhood. All three companions are M dwarfs, with spectral types ranging from M4 to M9.5. In two cases, G85-55‘B’ (M6) and G87-9‘B’ (M4), we have circumstantial evidence from spectroscopy, photometry and limited astrometry Portions of the data presented here were obtained at the W.M....

Laboratory Studies on the Irradiation of Methane in Interstellar, Cometary, and Solar System Ices

Pure methane ices (CH4) were irradiated at 10 K with energetic electrons to mimic the energy transfer processes that occur in the track of the trajectories of MeV cosmic-ray particles. The experiments were monitored via an FTIR spectrometer (solid state) and a quadrupole mass spectrometer (gas phase). Combined with electronic structure calculations, this paper focuses on the identification of C...