Related papers: Habitable Climates: The Influence of Eccentricity
The habitable zone concept is important because it focuses the scientific search for extraterrestrial life and aids the planning of future telescopes. Recent work has shown that planets near the outer edge of the habitable zone might not…
Detecting massive satellites of extrasolar planets has now become feasible, which led naturally to questions about their habitability. In a previous study we presented constraints on the habitability of moons from stellar and planetary…
During the post-main sequence phase of stellar evolution the orbital distance of the habitable zone, which allows for liquid surface water on terrestrial planets, moves out past the system's original frost line, providing an opportunity 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…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
Stellar activity and planetary atmospheric properties have the potential to strongly influence habitability. To date, neither have been adequately studied in the multiverse context, so there has been no assessment of how these effects…
Several different factors influence the seasonal cycle of a planet. This study uses a general circulation model and an energy balance model (EBM) to assess the parameters that govern the seasonal cycle. We define two metrics to describe the…
Planetary climate can be affected by the interaction of the host star spectral energy distribution with the wavelength-dependent reflectivity of ice and snow. Here we explore this effect using a one dimensional (1-D), line-by-line,…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
Planetary rotation rate is a key parameter in determining atmospheric circulation and hence the spatial pattern of clouds. Since clouds can exert a dominant control on planetary radiation balance, rotation rate could be critical for…
Rocky planets with temperate conditions provide the best chance for discovering habitable worlds and life outside the Solar System. In the last decades, new instrumental facilities and large observational campaigns have been driven by the…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
Context: The principle definition of habitability for exoplanets is whether they can sustain liquid water on their surfaces, i.e. that they orbit within the habitable zone. However, the planet's magnetosphere should also be considered,…
Planetary climates are strongly affected by planetary orbital parameters such as obliquity, eccentricity, and precession. In exoplanetary systems, exo-terrestrial planets should have various obliquities. High-obliquity planets would have…
In this study, we compare two analytic energy balance models with explicit dependence on obliquity to study the likelihood of different stable ice configurations. We compare the results of models with different methods of heat transport and…
The detection of many extrasolar gas giants with high eccentricities indicates that dynamical instabilities in planetary systems are common. These instabilities can alter the orbits of gas giants as well as the orbits of terrestrial planets…
The photometric and spectroscopic signatures of habitable planets orbiting FGK stars may be modulated by surface ice coverage. To estimate its frequency and locations, we simulated the climates of hypothetical planets with a 1D energy…
The TRAPPIST-1 system provides an extraordinary opportunity to study multiple terrestrial extrasolar planets and their atmospheres. Here we use the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model version 4 to study the…
The dynamic nature of life's ability to thrive in diverse and changing planetary environments suggests that habitability and survival depend on the evolutionary path and life adaptation to environmental conditions. Here we explore such…
The potential habitability of a terrestrial planet is usually defined by the possible existence of liquid water on its surface. The potential presence of liquid water depends on many factors such as, most importantly, surface temperatures.…