Related papers: Inevitability of Plate Tectonics on Super-Earths
Some recently discovered short-period Earth to Neptune sized exoplanets (super Earths) have low observed mean densities which can only be explained by voluminous gaseous atmospheres. Here, we study the conditions allowing the accretion and…
Earth-mass planets are expected to have atmospheres and experience thermal tides raised by the host star. These tides transfer energy to the planet that can counter the dissipation from bodily tides. Indeed, even a relatively thin…
The theory of plate tectonics describes some basic global tectonic processes as a result of motion of lithospheric plates. The boundary between lithosphere and asthenosphere (LAB) is defined by a difference in response to stress. Position…
Should we expect most habitable planets to share the Earth's marbled appearance? For a planetary surface to boast extensive areas of both land and water, a delicate balance must be struck between the volume of water it retains and the…
Terrestrial planets are thought to be the result of a vast number of gravitational interactions and collisions between smaller bodies. We use numerical simulations to show that practically identical initial conditions result in a wide array…
Aims. On Earth, plate tectonics play an integral role in driving the long-term carbon cycle; however, on tidally locked rocky exoplanets alternative tectonic mechanisms driven by tidal stress and tidal heating could serve in an analogous…
In the expanding Earth framework it is possible to find additional phenomena that could contribute in a proper way to the water balance and general tectonic eustatism involved in the sea lever rising. Recent compilations seems to leave…
We investigate a population of transiting planets that receive relatively modest stellar insolation, indicating equilibrium temperatures $< 1000$ K, and for which the heating mechanism that inflates hot Jupiters does not appear to be…
Understanding when global glaciations occur on Earth-like planets is a major challenge in climate evolution research. Most models of how greenhouse gases like CO2 evolve with time on terrestrial planets are deterministic, but the complex,…
Planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars are often assumed to be in a state of tidally synchronized rotation, which would considerably affect their putative habitability. Although thermal tides cause Venus to rotate retrogradely,…
Recently, many Earth-sized planets have been discovered around stars other than the Sun that might possess appropriate conditions for life. The development of theoretical methods for assessing the putative habitability of these worlds is of…
In recent years we have been witnessing the discovery of one extrasolar gas giant after another. Now the time has come to detect more low-mass planets like Super-Earths and Earth-like objects. An interesting question to ask is: where should…
In recent years, numerical models that were developed for Earth have been adapted to study exoplanetary climates to understand how the broad range of possible exoplanetary properties affects their climate state. The recent discovery and…
Planetary obliquity is a first order control on planetary climate and seasonal contrast, which has a number of cascading consequences for life. How moderately high obliquity (obliquities greater than Earth's current obliquity up to…
The habitable fraction of a planet's surface is important for the detectability of surface biosignatures. The extent and distribution of habitable areas is influenced by external parameters that control the planet's climate, atmospheric…
The discovery of close-to-star gas-giant exo-planets lends support to the idea of Earth's origin as a Jupiter-like gas-giant and to the consequences of its compression, including whole-Earth decompression dynamics that gives rise, without…
With improvements in exoplanet detection techniques, the number of multiple planet systems discovered is increasing, while the detection of potentially habitable Earth-mass planets remains complicated and thus requires new search…
The past decade has seen major progress in our understanding of terrestrial planet formation. Yet key questions remain. In this review we first address the growth of 100 km-scale planetesimals as a consequence of dust coagulation and…
Waste heat production represents an inevitable consequence of energy conversion as per the laws of thermodynamics. Based on this fact, by using simple theoretical models, we analyze constraints on the habitability of Earth-like terrestrial…
The habitable zones of main sequence stars have traditionally been defined as the range of orbits that intercept the appropriate amount of stellar flux to permit surface water on a planet. Terrestrial exoplanets discovered to orbit M stars…