Related papers: Mass-Radius Relationships for Solid Exoplanets
Stars and planets both form by accreting material from a surrounding disk. Because they grow from the same material, theory predicts that there should be a relationship between their compositions. In this study, we search for a…
Gas-giant exoplanets are test cases for theories of planet formation as their atmospheres are proposed to carry signatures of their formation within the protoplanetary disk. The metallicity and C/O are key diagnostics, allowing to…
Transiting planet surveys like Kepler have provided a wealth of information on the distribution of planetary radii, particularly for the new populations of super-Earth and sub-Neptune sized planets. In order to aid in the physical…
Condensed planets contract or expand as their temperature changes. With the exception of the effect of phase changes, this phenomenon is generally interpreted as being solely related to the thermal expansivity of the planet's components.…
The mass and distribution of metals in the interiors of exoplanets are essential for constraining their formation and evolution processes. Nevertheless, with only masses and radii measured, the determination of exoplanet interior structures…
The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition and potential habitability of these objects. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their…
Small planets ($\sim$1--3.9 $\Rearth$) constitute more than half of the inventory of the 4000-plus exoplanets discovered so far. Smaller planets are sufficiently dense to be rocky, but those with radii larger than $\sim$1.6 $\Rearth$ are…
A fundamental endeavor in exoplanetary research is to characterize the bulk compositions of planets via measurements of their masses and radii. With future sample sizes of hundreds of planets to come from TESS and PLATO, we develop a…
The NASA Exoplanet Archive was searched for planets with an equilibrium temperature below 600 K, mass uncertainty less than 27 percent, and radius uncertainty less than 8 percent. This search produced 93 planets with mass from 0.3 to 1680…
Because of their common origin, it was assumed that the composition of planet building blocks should, to a first order, correlate with stellar atmospheric composition, especially for refractory elements. In fact, information on the relative…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
It has long been known that stars with high metallicity are more likely to host giant planets than stars with low metallicity. Yet the connection between host star metallicity and the properties of small planets is only just beginning to be…
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…
Many extrasolar (bound) terrestrial planets and free-floating (unbound) planets have been discovered. The existence of bound and unbound terrestrial planets with liquid water is an important question, and of particular importance is the…
We use a carefully selected subsample of 1053 confirmed exoplanets from the NASA Exoplanet Archive to construct empirical power-law exoplanet mass-radius-temperature ($M$-$R$-$T$) relations. Using orthogonal distance regression to account…
Some exoplanets have much higher densities than expected from stellar abundances of planet-forming elements. There are two theories - metal-rich formation hypothesis and naked core hypothesis - that explain how formation and evolution can…
Terrestrial planets in the solar system, such as the Earth, are oxygen-rich, with silicates and iron being the most common minerals in their interiors. However, the true chemical diversity of rocky planets orbiting other stars is yet…
The exploration of carbon-to-oxygen ratios has yielded intriguing insights into the composition of close-in giant exoplanets, giving rise to a distinct classification: carbon-rich planets, characterized by a carbon-to-oxygen ratio $\ge$ 1…
We report relations between inner ($<1$ au) super Earths (planets with mass/radius between Earth and Neptune) and outer ($>1$ au) giant planets (mass $>0.3~M_{\rm J}$, or cold Jupiters) around Sun-like stars, based on data from both…
Ascertaining rocky exoplanets dynamic evolution requires better understanding of key internal thermophysical processes that shaped their geological surfaces, heat fluxes, volatiles and atmospheric content. New high-pressure experiments on…