Related papers: Comparison of Jupiter Interior Models Derived from…
Mercury's core mass fraction (CMF) is ~0.7, more than double that of the other rocky planets in the solar system, which have CMFs of ~0.3. The origin of Mercury's large, iron-rich core remains unknown. Adding to this mystery, an elusive…
We use an existing laboratory facility for space hardware calibration in vacuum to study the impact of energetic ions on water ice. The experiment is intended to simulate the conditions on the surface of Jupiter's icy moons. We present…
Materials at high pressures and temperatures are of great interest for planetary science and astrophysics, warm dense matter physics, and inertial confinement fusion research. Planetary structure models rely on our understanding of the…
Motivated by recent spectroscopic observations suggesting that atmospheres of some extrasolar giant-planets are carbon-rich, i.e. carbon/oxygen ratio (C/O) $\ge$ 1, we find that the whole set of compositional data for Jupiter is consistent…
Observations of scattered light and thermal emission from hot Jupiter exoplanets have suggested the presence of inhomogeneous aerosols in their atmospheres. 3D general circulation models (GCMs) that attempt to model the effects of aerosols…
Jupiter's deep abundances help to constrain the formation history of the planet and the environment of the protoplanetary nebula. Juno recently measured Jupiter's deep oxygen abundance near the equator to be 2.2$_{-2.1}^{+3.9}$ times the…
We discuss the interior structure and composition of giant planets, and how this structure changes as these planets cool and contract over time. Here we define giant planets as those that have an observable hydrogen-helium envelope, which…
Recent discoveries of water-rich, sub-Neptunian to Neptunian-massed exoplanets with short-period orbits present a new parameter space for the study of exoplanetary dynamos. We explore the geometry of the dynamo source region within this…
Numerical simulation is an important tool to help us understand the process of structure formation in the universe. However many simulation results of cold dark matter (CDM) halos on small scale are inconsistent with observations: the…
Continuing our initiative on advancing the calculations of planetesimal accretion in the core-accretion model, we present here the results of our recent study of the contributions of planetesimals around and beyond the orbit of Saturn. In…
We compute grids of radiative-convective model atmospheres for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune over a range of intrinsic fluxes and surface gravities. The atmosphere grids serve as an upper boundary condition for models of the thermal…
Recent observations of ultra-hot Jupiters with dayside temperatures in excess of $2500~\mathrm{K}$ have found evidence for new physical processes at play in their atmospheres. In this work, we investigate the effects of the dissociation of…
Observations have confirmed the existence of multiple-planet systems containing a hot Jupiter and smaller planetary companions. Examples include WASP-47, Kepler-730, and TOI-1130. We examine the plausibility of forming such systems in situ…
Mercury is notoriously difficult to form in solar system simulations, due to its small mass and iron-rich composition. Smooth particle hydrodynamics simulations of collisions have found that a Mercury-like body could be formed by one or…
The thermal structure of planetary atmospheres is an essential input for predicting and retrieving the distribution of gases and aerosols, as well as the bulk chemical abundances. In the case of Jupiter, the temperature at a reference level…
Recent JWST observations of the sub-Neptune GJ 1214 b suggest that it hosts a high-metallicity (>100x solar), hazy atmosphere. Emission spectra of the planet show molecular absorption features, most likely due to atmospheric H2O. In light…
Ultra-hot Jupiters (UHJs) are natural laboratories to study extreme physics in planetary atmospheres and their rich observational data sets are yet to be confronted with models with varying complexities at a population level. In this work,…
In order to test planetary accretion and differentiation scenarios, we integrated a multistage core-mantle differentiation model with N-body accretion simulations. Impacts between embryos and planetesimals result in magma ocean formation…
We report on the critical influence of small-scale flow structures (e.g., fronts, vortices, and waves) that immediately arise in hot-exoplanet atmosphere simulations initialized with a resting state. A hot, 1:1 spin-orbit synchronized…
With a series of numerical simulations, we analyze the thermo-hydrodynamical evolution of circumstellar disks containing Jupiter-size protoplanets. In the framework of the two-dimensional approximation, we consider an energy equation that…