Related papers: Detecting Oceans on Extrasolar Planets Using the G…
Improved photometric sensitivity from space-based telescopes have enabled the detection of phase variations for a small sample of hot Jupiters. However, exoplanets in highly eccentric orbits present unique opportunities to study the effects…
Many planetary parameters impact the climate state of Earth-like exoplanets and could vary significantly from those on Earth. However, some of these parameters may be impossible to observe, causing ambiguity in determining exoplanet climate…
Hundreds of gravitational microlensing events have now been detected towards the Galactic bulge, with many more to come. The detection of fine structure in these events has been theorized to be an excellent way to discover extra-solar…
We revisit the possibility of detecting an extrasolar planet around a background star as it crosses the fold caustic of a foreground binary lens. During such an event, the planet's flux can be magnified by a factor of ~100 or more. The…
Rotation and orbital eccentricity both strongly influence planetary climate. Eccentricities can often be measured for exoplanets, but rotation rates are currently difficult or impossible to constrain. Here we examine how the combined…
The growing rate of increase in the number of the discovered extra-solar planets which has consequently raised the enthusiasm to explore the universe in hope of finding earth-like planets has resulted in the wide use of Gravitational…
It has been posited that lunar eclipse observations may help predict the in-transit signature of Earth-like extrasolar planets. However, a comparative analysis of the two phenomena addressing in detail the transport of stellar light through…
We investigate the intensity and polarization of reflected light from planetary atmospheres. We present a large grid of Monte Carlo simulations for planets with Rayleigh scattering atmospheres. We discuss the disk-integrated polarization…
[Abridged] To simulate the kinds of observations that will eventually be obtained for exoplanets, the Deep Impact spacecraft obtained light curves of Earth at seven wavebands spanning 300-1000 nm as part of the EPOXI mission of opportunity.…
All water-covered rocky planets in the inner habitable zones of solar-type stars will inevitably experience a catastrophic runaway climate due to increasing stellar luminosity and limits to outgoing infrared radiation from wet greenhouse…
The gravitational influence of a planet on a nearby disk provides a powerful tool for detecting and studying extrasolar planetary systems. Here we demonstrate that gaps can be opened in dynamically cold debris disks at the mean-motion…
Due to stellar rotation, the observed radial velocity of a star varies during the transit of a planet across its surface, a phenomenon known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect. The amplitude of the RM effect is related to the radius of…
Future direct-imaging exoplanet missions such as WFIRST/AFTA, Exo-C, and Exo-S will measure the reflectivity of exoplanets at visible wavelengths. The exoplanets to be observed will be located further away from their parent stars than is…
Atmospheric refraction affects to various degrees exoplanet transit, lunar eclipse, as well as stellar occultation observations. Exoplanet retrieval algorithms often use analytical expressions for the column abundance along a ray traversing…
The light scattered by an extrasolar Earth-like planet's surface and atmosphere will vary in intensity and color as the planet rotates; the resulting light curve will contain information about the planet's properties. Since most of the…
Understanding the total flux and polarization signals of Earth-like planets and their spectral and temporal variability is essential for the future characterization of such exoplanets. We provide computed total (F) and linearly (Q and U)…
The detection and study of extrasolar planets is an exciting and thriving field in modern astrophysics, and an increasingly popular topic in introductory astronomy courses. One detection method relies on searching for stars whose light has…
Context. The discovery of an extrasolar planet with an ocean has crucial importance in the search for life beyond Earth. The polarimetric detection of specularly reflected light from a smooth liquid surface is anticipated theoretically,…
Atmospheric regions below a refractive boundary are hidden in limb observations. Refraction thus creates a gray continuum in the planet's transmission spectrum which can hide spectral features associated with sources of atmospheric opacity.…
Light and cold extrasolar planets such as OGLE 2005-BLG-390Lb, a 5.5 Earth-mass planet detected via microlensing, could be frequent in the Galaxy according to some preliminary results from microlensing experiments. These planets can be…