The main purpose of this panel discussion was to encourage conversation around potential collaborations between the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) and IAU Divisions. The discussion was facilitated by the OAD and the conversation revolved mainly around two questions: (i) What should the OAD be doing to enhance the work of the Divisions? (ii) What could the Divisions (both members and respective scientific discipline in general) contribute towards the implementation of the IAU strategic plan?

The International Astronomical Union's Commission 51 was established in 1982 as\break “Bioastronomy: Search for Extraterrestrial Life”. As the interests of Commission members expanded to include all aspects of the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe, C51 was renamed simply “Bioastronomy” in 2006. Thus, the term “bioastronomy” became for the Commission essentially synonymous with the NASA-coined term “astrobiology“. Since the latter term has been adopted by many scientific societies around the world with similar interests, under the new Division and Commission structure of the IAU the Commission has been again renamed and is now Commission F-3 “Astrobiology”.

In order to mark a distinction with the traditional triennial reports, for this legacy issue we have asked our present and past OC members, as well as a few other outstanding members of the Celestial Mechanics community, to write a short essay on “recent highlights and the future of Celestial Mechanics”. Below we collect the contributions of the people who responded to our invitation. As it is natural, each of them interpreted their task differently. Some produced a dissertation on broad and general aspects, others focused on a specific topic of their interest. Some considered that their role was to provide a detailed review, with a list of key references, others preferred to mention the topics for which progress has been significant but without quoting any references, implicitly considering that this progress was possible thanks to the collective efforts of many scientists, and not just a few. This is great, as we appreciate the diversity of attitudes and opinions.

The past few years have witnessed a large increase in the number of extrasolar planets. Thanks to successful surveys from the ground and from space, there are now over 1000 confirmed exoplanets and more then 3000 planetary candidates. More than 130 of these systems host multiple planets. Many of these systems demonstrate physical and orbital characteristics fundamentally different from those of our solar system. The challenges associated with the diversity of planetary systems have raised many interesting questions on planet formation and orbital dynamics.

The presence of additional bodies orbiting a binary star system can be detected by monitoring the binary's eclipse timing. These so-called circumbinary objects will reveal themselves by i) either introducing a reflex motion of the binary system about the total system's barycenter creating a geometric light-travel time effect (LITE), ii) by gravitational perturbations on the binary orbit, or iii) a combination of the two effects resulting in eclipse timing (ETV) and transit timing (TTV) variations. Motivated by the four recently detected circumbinary planets by the Kepler space telescope (Kepler-16b, Kepler-34b, Kepler-35b and Kepler-38b) we have begun to study their dynamics in the presence of an additional massive perturber. In particular we used Kepler-16b as a test bed case. We are aiming to study the detectability of non-transiting and inclined circumbinary planets using the ETV effect along with the fast indicator MEGNO to quantitatively map the chaotic/quasi-periodic regions of the orbital parameter-space and to determine where the orbit of a circumbinary planet will be stable. We have calculated the amplitudes of TTV and ETV signals for different values of the mass and orbital elements of the planet and binary.

Both the core-accretion and disk-instability models suggest that at the last stage of the formation of a gas-giant, the core of this object is surrounded by an extended gaseous envelope. At this stage, while the envelope is contracting, planetesimals from the protoplanetary disk may be scattered into the protoplanets atmosphere and deposit some or all of their materials as they interact with the gas. We have carried out extensive simulations of approximately 104 planetesimals interacting with a envelope of a Jupiter-mass protoplanet including effects of gas drag, heating, and the effect of the protoplanets extended mass distribution. Simulations have been carried out for different radii and compositions of planetesimals so that all three processes occur to different degrees. We present the results of our simulations and discuss their implications for the enrichment of ices in giant planets. We also present statistics for the probability of capture (i.e. total mass-deposition) of planetesimals as a function of their size, composition, and closest approach to the center of the protoplanetary body.

In close eclipsing binaries, measurements of the variations in the binary's eclipse timing may be used to infer information about the existence of planets in P-Type motion. To study the possibility of detecting such planets with CoRoT and Kepler, we calculated eclipse timing variations (ETV) for different values of the mass and orbital elements of the perturbing planet. These investigations are a continuation of the work of Schwarz et al. (2011).

M dwarfs constitute more than 70% of the stars in the solar neighborhood. They are cooler and smaller than Sun-like stars and have less-massive disks which suggests that planets around these stars are more likely to be Neptune-size or smaller. The transit depths and transit times of planets around M stars are large and well-matched to the Kepler temporal resolution. As a result, M stars have been of particular interest for searching for planets in both radial velocity and transit photometry surveys. We have recently started a project on searching for possible planet-hosting M stars in the publicly available data from Kepler space telescope. We have used four criteria, namely, the magnitude, proper motion, H-Ks and J-H colors, and searched for M stars in Q0 and Q1 data sets. We have been able to find 108 M stars among which 54 had not been previously identified among Kepler's targets. We discuss the details of our selection process and present the results.

The discovery of Main Belt Comets (MBCs) has raised many questions regarding the origin and activation mechanism of these objects. Results of a study of the dynamics of these bodies suggest that MBCs were formed in-situ as the remnants of the break-up of large icy asteroids. Simulations show that similar to the asteroids in the main belt, MBCs with orbital eccentricities smaller than 0.2 and inclinations lower than 25° have stable orbits implying that many MBCs with initially larger eccentricities and inclinations might have been scattered to other regions of the asteroid belt. Among scattered MBCs, approximately 20% reach the region of terrestrial planets where they might have contributed to the accumulation of water on Earth. Simulations also show that collisions among MBCs and small objects could have played an important role in triggering the cometary activity of these bodies. Such collisions might have exposed sub-surface water ice which sublimated and created thin atmospheres and tails around MBCs. This paper discusses the results of numerical studies of the dynamics of MBCs and their implications for the origin of these objects. The results of a large numerical modeling of the collisions of m-sized bodies with km-sized asteroids in the outer part of the asteroid belt are also presented and the viability of the collision-triggering activation scenario is discussed.

Understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of habitable planets in extrasolar planetary systems is a challenging task. In this respect, systems with multiple giant planets and/or multiple stars present special complications. The formation of habitable planets in these environments is strongly affected by the dynamics of their giant planets and/or their stellar companions. These objects have profound effects on the structure of the disk of planetesimals and protoplanetary objects in which terrestrial-class planets are formed. To what extent the current theories of planet formation can be applied to such “extreme” planetary systems depends on the dynamical characteristics of their planets and/or their binary stars. In this paper, I present the results of a study of the possibility of the existence of Earth-like objects in systems with multiple giant planets (namely υ Andromedae, 47 UMa, GJ 876, and 55 Cnc) and discuss the dynamics of the newly discovered Neptune-sized object in 55 Cnc system. I will also review habitable planet formation in binary systems and present the results of a systematic search of the parameter-space for which Earth-like objects can form and maintain long-term stable orbits in the habitable zones of binary stars.