A dynamical study on exocomets in the Proxima Centauri system and their importance for water transport
- Author(s)
- Richard Schwarz, Akos Bazso, Birgit Loibnegger
- Abstract
The scenario and the efficiency of water transport by planetesimals, asteroids and comets are still part of discussions amongst the most important unresolved questions about the early Solar System. A recent observation of a planet around Proxima Centauri which is in the habitable zone of that small star (0.12 masses of the Sun) trigered the debate whether this planet can be habitable or not. The better understanding of cometary dynamics in extrasolar systems shall provide information about cometary reservoirs and give an insight in water transport especially to possible planets in the habitable Zone as for example shown in Loibnegger et al. 2016. In our studies we did numerous n-body simulations with Proxima Centauri b and an outer disk of comets. We investigated close encounters and collisions with the planet, which are important for the transport of water in this confirmed exoplanetary system. Observers predicted a second planet with a period between 60 and 500 days period Anglada-Escudé et al. 2016. Therefore, for further calculations we used the same configuration but included an additional planet outside of Proxima Centauri b.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- Publication date
- 03-2017
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/a4065619-a169-4661-bea2-4ba403fd12c7