Context. GJ 1214 is orbited by a transiting super-Earth-mass planet. It is a primary target for ongoing efforts to understand the emerging population of super-Earth-mass planets around M dwarfs, some of which are detected within the liquid water (habitable) zone of their host stars.

We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities (FPPs) for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have an FPP under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than three times the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify six planets with densities above 5 g cm(-3), suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than similar to 2 R-circle plus. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).

We present the detection of five planets-Kepler-62b, c, d, e, and f-of size 1.31, 0.54, 1.95, 1.61 and 1.41 Earth radii (R-circle plus), orbiting a K2V star at periods of 5.7, 12.4, 18.2, 122.4, and 267.3 days, respectively. The outermost planets, Kepler-62e and -62f, are super-Earth-size (1.25 R-circle plus < planet radius <= 2.0 R-circle plus) planets in the habitable zone of their host star, respectively receiving 1.2 +/- 0.2 times and 0.41 +/- 0.05 times the solar flux at Earth's orbit. Theoretical models of Kepler-62e and -62f for a stellar age of similar to 7 billion years suggest that both planets could be solid, either with a rocky composition or composed of mostly solid water in their bulk.

A key test of the supernova triggering and injection hypothesis for the origin of the solar system's short-lived radioisotopes is to reproduce the inferred initial abundances of these isotopes. We present here the most detailed models to date of the shock wave triggering and injection process, where shock waves with varied properties strike fully three-dimensional, rotating, dense cloud cores. The models are calculated with the FLASH adaptive mesh hydrodynamics code. Three different outcomes can result: triggered collapse leading to fragmentation into a multiple protostar system; triggered collapse leading to a single protostar embedded in a protostellar disk; or failure to undergo dynamic collapse. Shock wave material is injected into the collapsing clouds through Rayleigh-Taylor fingers, resulting in initially inhomogeneous distributions in the protostars and protostellar disks. Cloud rotation about an axis aligned with the shock propagation direction does not increase the injection efficiency appreciably, as the shock parameters were chosen to be optimal for injection even in the absence of rotation. For a shock wave from a core-collapse supernova, the dilution factors for supernova material are in the range of similar to 10(-4) to similar to 3 x 10(-4), in agreement with recent laboratory estimates of the required amount of dilution for Fe-60 and Al-26. We conclude that a type II supernova remains as a promising candidate for synthesizing the solar system's short-lived radioisotopes shortly before their injection into the presolar cloud core by the supernova's remnant shock wave.

We present the results of a large suite of three-dimensional models of the collapse of magnetic molecular cloud cores using the adaptive mesh refinement code Enzo2.2 in the ideal magnetohydrodynamics approximation. The cloud cores are initially either prolate or oblate, centrally condensed clouds with masses of 1.73 or 2.73 Mo, respectively. The radial density profiles are Gaussian, with central densities 20 times higher than boundary densities. A barotropic equation of state is used to represent the transition from low density isothermal phases, to high density optically thick phases. The initial magnetic field strength ranges from 6.3 to 100 p,G, corresponding to clouds that are strongly to marginally supercritical, respectively, in terms of the mass to magnetic flux ratio. The magnetic field is initially uniform and aligned with the clouds' rotation axes, with initial ratios of rotational to gravitational energy ranging from 10-4 to 0.1. Two significantly different outcomes for collapse result: (1) formation of single protostars with spiral arms, and (2) fragmentation into multiple protostar systems. The transition between these two outcomes depends primarily on the initial magnetic field strength, with fragmentation occurring for mass to flux ratios greater than about 14 times the critical ratio for prolate clouds. Oblate clouds typically fragment into several times more clumps than prolate clouds. Multiple, rather than binary, system formation is the general rule in either case, suggesting that binary stars are primarily the result of the orbital dissolution of multiple protostar systems.

One of the primary goals of exoplanet science is to find and characterize habitable planets, and direct imaging will play a key role in this effort. Though imaging a true Earth analog is likely out of reach from the ground, the coming generation of giant telescopes will find and characterize many planets in and near the habitable zones (HZs) of nearby stars. Radial velocity and transit searches indicate that such planets are common, but imaging them will require achieving extreme contrasts at very small angular separations, posing many challenges for adaptive optics (AO) system design. Giant planets in the HZ may even be within reach with the latest generation of high-contrast imagers for a handful of very nearby stars. Here we will review the definition of the HZ, and the characteristics of detectable planets there. We then review some of the ways that direct imaging in the HZ will be different from the typical exoplanet imaging survey today. Finally, we present preliminary results from our observations of the HZ of alpha Centauri A with the Magellan AO system's VisAO and Clio2 cameras.

A long-standing problem in the collisional accretion of terrestrial planets is the possible loss of m-size bodies through their inward migration onto the protostar as a result of gas drag forces. Such inward migration can be halted, and indeed even reversed, in a protoplanetary disk with local pressure maxima, such as marginally gravitationally unstable (MGU) phases of evolution, e.g., FU Orionis events. Results are presented for a suite of three-dimensional models of MGU disks extending from 1 to 10 AU and containing solid particles with sizes of 1 cm, 10 cm, 1 m, or 10 m, subject to disk gas drag and gravitational forces. These hydrodynamical models show that over disk evolution time scales of similar to 6 x 10(3) years or longer, during which over half the gaseous disk mass is accreted by the protostar, very few 1 and 10 m bodies are lost through inward migration: most bodies survive and orbit stably in the outer disk. A greater fraction of 1 and 10 cm particles are lost to the central protostar during these time periods, as such particles are more closely tied to the disk gas accreting onto the protostar, but even in these cases, a significant fraction survive and undergo transport from the hot inner disk to the cold outer disk, perhaps explaining the presence of small refractory particles in Comet Wild 2. Evidently MGU disk phases offer a means to overcome the m-sized migration barrier to collisional accumulation.

Both astronomical observations of the interaction of Type II supernova remnants (SNRs) with dense interstellar clouds as well as cosmochemical studies of the abundances of daughter products of short-lived radioisotopes (SLRIs) formed by supernova nucleosynthesis support the hypothesis that the Solar System's SLRIs may have been derived from a supernova. This paper continues a series devoted to examining whether or not such a shock wave could have triggered the dynamical collapse of a dense, presolar cloud core and simultaneously injected sufficient abundances of SLRIs to explain the cosmochemical evidence. Here, we examine the effects of shock waves striking clouds whose spin axes are oriented perpendicular, rather than parallel, to the direction of propagation of the shock front. The models start with 2.2 M-circle dot cloud cores and shock speeds of 20 or 40 km s(-1). Central protostars and protoplanetary disks form in all models, although with their disk spin axes aligned somewhat randomly. The disks derive most of their angular momentum not from the initial cloud rotation, but from the Rayleigh-Taylor fingers that also inject shock wave SLRIs. Injection efficiencies, f(i), the fraction of the incident shock wave material injected into the collapsing cloud core, are similar to 0.04-0.1 in these models, similar to when the rotation axis is parallel to the shock propagation direction. Evidently, altering the rotation axis orientation has only a minor effect on the outcome, strengthening the case for this scenario as an explanation for the Solar System's SLRIs.

We present high-contrast Magellan adaptive optics images of HD 7449, a Sun-like star with one planet and a long-term radial velocity (RV) trend. We unambiguously detect the source of the long-term trend from 0.6-2.15 mu m. at a separation of similar to 0.'' 54. We use the object's colors and spectral energy distribution to show that it is most likely an M4-M5 dwarf (mass similar to 0.1-0.2 M-circle dot) at the same distance as the primary and is therefore likely bound. We also present new RVs measured with the Magellan/MIKE and Planet Finder Spectrograph spectrometers and compile these with archival data from CORALIE and HARPS. We use a new Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to constrain both the mass (>0.17 M-circle dot at 99% confidence) and semimajor axis (similar to 18 AU) of the M dwarf companion (HD 7449B). We also refine the parameters of the known massive planet (HD 7449Ab), finding that its minimum mass is 1.09(-0.19)(+0.52) M-J, its semimajor axis is 2.33(-0.02)(+0.01) AU, and its eccentricity is 0.8(-0.06)(+0.08). We use N-body simulations to constrain the eccentricity of HD 7449B to less than or similar to 0.5. The M dwarf may be inducing Kozai oscillations on the planet, explaining its high eccentricity. If this is the case and its orbit was initially circular, the mass of the planet would need to be less than or similar to 1.5 M-J. This demonstrates that strong constraints on known planets can be made using direct observations of otherwise undetectable long-period companions.