Related papers: Post-Capture Evolution of Potentially Habitable Ex…
The discovery of planets around massive stars is important for understanding how planet formation and evolution is conditioned by different stellar environments. However, current planetary search surveys have failed to detect planets around…
We review how tides may impact the habitability of terrestrial-like planets. If such planets form around low-mass stars, then planets in the circumstellar habitable zone will be close enough to their host stars to experience strong tidal…
Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars undergo strong tidal effects that modify their spin states. These planets are expected to host dense atmospheres that can also play an important role in the spin evolution. On one…
The Habitable Zone for a given star describes the range of circumstellar distances from the star within which a planet could have liquid water on its surface, which depends upon the stellar properties. Here we describe the development of…
The field of exoplanetary science has experienced a recent surge of new systems that is largely due to the precision photometry provided by the Kepler mission. The latest discoveries have included compact planetary systems in which the…
The (yet-to-be confirmed) discovery of a Neptune-sized moon around the ~3.2 Jupiter-mass planet in Kepler 1625 puts interesting constraints on the formation of the system. In particular, the relatively wide orbit of the moon around the…
The aim of our study is to investigate the possibility of habitable moons orbiting the giant planet HD 23079b, a Jupiter-mass planet, which follows a low-eccentricity orbit in the outer region of HD 23079's habitable zone. We show that HD…
To date, a handful of exoplanets have been photometrically mapped using phase-modulated reflection or emission from their surfaces, but the small amplitudes of such signals have limited previous maps almost exclusively to coarse dipolar…
Exoplanets with substantial Hydrogen/Helium atmospheres have been discovered in abundance, many residing extremely close to their parent stars. The extreme irradiation levels these atmospheres experience causes them to undergo hydrodynamic…
The recent discoveries of giant planets around nearby stars have galvanized the planetary science community, astronomers, and the public at large. Since {\it direct} detection is now feasible, and is suggested by the recent acquisition of…
Moons orbiting exoplanets ("exomoons") may hold clues about planet formation, migration, and habitability. In this work, we investigate the plausibility of exomoons orbiting the temperate ($T_\text{eq}=294$ K) giant ($R = 9.2$ R$_\oplus$)…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
In a recent paper we proposed that the giant planets' primordial orbits may have been eccentric (~0.05), and used a suite of dynamical simulations to show outcomes of the giant planet instability that are consistent with their present-day…
With the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets and a potentially huge number of Earth-like planets waiting to be discovered, the conditions for their habitability have become a focal point in exoplanetary research. The classical picture of…
Planned astronomical observatories of the 2020s will be capable of obtaining reflected light photometry and spectroscopy of cool extrasolar giant planets. Here we explain that such data are valuable both for understanding the origin and…
Instabilities and strong dynamical interactions between several giant planets have been proposed as a possible explanation for the surprising orbital properties of extrasolar planetary systems. In particular, dynamical instabilities would…
The investigation of exoplanetary habitability is integral to advancing our knowledge of extraterrestrial life potential and detailing the environmental conditions of distant worlds. In this analysis, we explore the properties of exoplanets…
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 irregular satellites of outer planets are thought to have been captured from heliocentric orbits. The exact nature of the capture process, however, remains uncertain. We examine the possibility that irregular satellites were captured…
The discovery of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun has accelerated over the past decade, and this trend will continue as new space- and ground-based observatories employ next-generation instrumentation to search the skies for…