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Scientific American

September 1, 1999

1 min read

Migrating Planets

Did the solar system always look the way it does now? New evidence indicates that the outer planets may have migrated to their present orbits

By Renu Malhotra

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DETECTION OF EXTRASOLAR GIANT PLANETS. Geoffrey W. Marcy and R. Paul Butler in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 36, pages 57-98; 1998.

NEWTON'S CLOCK: CHAOS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM. Ivars Peterson. W. H. Freeman and Company, 1993.

Dynamics of the Kuiper Belt. Renu Malhotra et al. in Protostars and Planets IV. Edited by V. Mannings et al. University of Arizona Press (in press).

RENU MALHOTRA did her undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and received a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1988. After completing postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology, she moved to her current position as a staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. In her research, she has followed her passionate interest in the dynamics and evolution of the solar system and other planetary systems. She also immensely enjoys playing with her four-year-old daughter, Mira.

More by Renu Malhotra
Scientific American Magazine Vol 281 Issue 3This article was originally published with the title “Migrating Planets” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 281 No. 3 ()
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican091999-5qkSXMmdxGbtsDKDsKY4Zz
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