Related papers: Tides and the Evolution of Planetary Habitability
A stellar evolution computer model has been used to determine changes in the luminosity L and effective temperature T(e) of single stars during their time on the main sequence. The range of stellar masses investigated was from 0.5 to 1.5…
It has been established theoretically that atmospheric thermal tides on rocky planets can lead to significant modifications of rotational evolution, both close to synchronous rotation and at faster rotations if certain resonant conditions…
The inner edge of the classical habitable zone is often defined by the critical flux needed to trigger the runaway greenhouse instability. This 1D notion of a critical flux, however, may not be so relevant for inhomogeneously irradiated…
The evolution of planetary systems around white dwarfs is crucial to understanding the presence of planetary material in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. These systems uniquely probe exoplanetary compositions. Periodic signals in the…
We calculate the evolution of planets undergoing a strong tidal encounter using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), for a range of periastron separations. We find that outside the Roche limit, the evolution of the planet is…
A rigorous definition of the habitable zone and its dependence on planetary properties is part of the search for habitable exoplanets. In this work, we use the general circulation model ExoCAM to determine how the inner edge of the…
(Shortened) We have used the measured properties of the stars in the 79 exoplanetary systems with one or more planets that have been observed in transit, to estimate each system's present habitability. The measured stellar properties have…
One of the most fundamental questions in exoplanetology is to determine whether a given planet is habitable. We estimate the relative likelihood of a planet's propensity towards habitability by considering key physical characteristics such…
The obliquities of planet-hosting stars are clues about the formation of planetary systems. Previous observations led to the hypothesis that for close-in giant planets, spin-orbit alignment is enforced by tidal interactions. Here, we…
The ongoing discoveries of extrasolar planets are unveiling a wide range of terrestrial mass (size) planets around their host stars. In this letter, we present estimates of habitable zones (HZs) around stars with stellar effective…
Since the launch of Kepler and Hubble more than a decade ago, we have come a long way in the quest to find a potentially habitable exoplanet. To date, we have already discovered more than 4000 exoplanets most of which are not suitable for…
Habitability is a measure of an environment's potential to support life, and a habitable exoplanet supports liquid water on its surface. However, a planet's success in maintaining liquid water on its surface is the end result of a complex…
Discoveries of exoplanets using the radial velocity method are progressively reaching out to increasingly longer orbital periods as the duration of surveys continues to climb. The improving sensitivity to potential Jupiter analogs is…
In most extrasolar planetary systems, the present orbits of known giant planets admit the existence of stable terrestrial planets. Those same giant planets, however, have typically eccentric orbits that hint at violent early dynamics less…
We revisit the tidal stability of extrasolar systems harboring a transiting planet and demonstrate that, independently of any tidal model, none but one (HAT-P-2b) of these planets has a tidal equilibrium state, which implies ultimately a…
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…
Recent work suggests that many short-period super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets may have significant spin axis tilts ("obliquities"). When planets are locked in high-obliquity states, the tidal dissipation rate may increase by several…
The competition between the torques induced by solid and thermal tides drives the rotational dynamics of Venus-like planets and super-Earths orbiting in the habitable zone of low-mass stars. The tidal responses of the atmosphere and…
Observations of hot Jupiters around solar-type stars with very short orbital periods (~day) suggest that tidal dissipation in such stars is not too efficient so that these planets can survive against rapid orbital decay. This is consistent…
In interacting galaxies, strong tidal forces disturb the global morphology of the progenitors and give birth to the long stellar, gaseous and dusty tails often observed. In addition to this destructive effect, tidal forces can morph into a…