Related papers: Inevitability of Plate Tectonics on Super-Earths
Aims: The long-term carbon cycle for planets with a surface entirely covered by oceans works differently from that of the present-day Earth because inefficient erosion leads to a strong dependence of the weathering rate on the rate of…
Terrestrial exoplanets in the canonical habitable zone may have a variety of initial water fractions due to random volatile delivery by planetesimals. If the total planetary water complement is high, the entire surface may be covered in…
Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor. The CO2 level is increased…
Carbonate-silicate weathering feedback is thought to stabilize Earth's climate on geologic timescales. If climate warms, faster mineral dissolution and increased rainfall speed up weathering, increasing CO2 drawdown and opposing the initial…
Water and land surfaces on a planet interact with gases in the atmosphere and with radiation from the star. These interactions define the environments that prevail on the planet, some of which may be more amenable to prebiotic chemistry,…
In the past 15 years, astronomers have revealed that a significant fraction of the stars should harbor planets and that it is likely that terrestrial planets are abundant in our galaxy. Among these planets, how many are habitable, i.e.…
Context: The long-term carbonate-silicate cycle plays an important role in the evolution of Earth's climate and, therefore, may also be an important mechanism in the evolution of the climates of Earth-like exoplanets. Aims: We investigate…
Recently, I showed that the "standard model" of solar system formation is wrong,yielding the contradiction of terrestrial planets having insufficiently massive cores, and showed instead the consistency of Eucken's 1944 concept of planets…
We have investigated the migration behaviors of uranium (U) and thorium (Th) in Earth and other terrestrial planets. Theoretical models of U and Th migration have been proposed. These models suggest that the unique features of Earth are…
Planets with masses between 0.1 - 10 M_earth are believed to host dense atmospheres. These atmospheres can play an important role on the planet's spin evolution, since thermal atmospheric tides, driven by the host star, may counterbalance…
The scaling of plate-tectonic convection is investigated by simulating thermal convection with pseudoplastic rheology and strongly temperature-dependent viscosity. The effect of mantle melting is also explored with additional…
The Kepler observations indicate that many exoplanets are super-Earths, which brings about a puzzle for the core-accretion scenario. Since observed super-Earths are in the range of critical mass, they would accrete gas efficiently and…
The stability of Earth's climate on geological timescales is enabled by the carbon-silicate cycle that acts as a negative feedback mechanism stabilizing surface temperatures via the intake and outgas of atmospheric carbon. On Earth, this…
A characteristic feature of the Earth is that diffuse thermal convection in the mantle produces localized deformation at the surface: Plate Tectonics. However, modelling this phenomenon remains a challenge, due to inability to simulate…
The unexpected diversity of exoplanets includes a growing number of super- Earth planets, i.e., exoplanets with masses of up to several Earth masses and a similar chemical and mineralogical composition as Earth. We present a thermal…
Planetary obliquity and eccentricity influence climate by shaping the spatial and temporal patterns of stellar energy incident at a planet's surface, affecting both the annual mean climate and magnitude of seasonal variability. Previous…
Many super-Earths are on very short orbits around their host star and, therefore, more likely to be tidally locked. Because this locking can lead to a strong contrast between the dayside and nightside surface temperatures, these…
Dozens of habitable zone, approximately earth-sized exoplanets are known today. An emerging frontier of exoplanet studies is identifying which of these habitable zone, small planets are actually habitable (have all necessary conditions for…
We develop a pebble-driven model to study the formation and evolution of planets around stars in the mass range of 0.08 and 1 solar mass. The growth and migration of a large number of individual protoplanetary embryos are simulated in a…
The formation and evolution of planetary systems are linked to their host stellar environment. In this study, we employ a pebble accretion-based planet population synthesis model to explore the correlation between planetary properties and…