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Planets in the "Habitable Zones" around M-type stars are important targets for characterization in future observations. Due to tidal-locking in synchronous spin-orbit rotations, the planets tend to have a hot dayside and a cold nightside.…
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…
Close binary interactions perform a key role in the formation and shaping of planetary nebulae. However only a small fraction of Galactic planetary nebulae are known to host close binary systems. Many such systems are detectable through…
The complexity of composite spectra of close binary star system makes study of the spectra of their component stars extremely difficult. For this reason there exists very little information on the photospheric chemical composition of stars…
Aquatic biospheres reliant on oxygenic photosynthesis are expected to play an important role on Earth-like planets endowed with large-scale oceans insofar as carbon fixation (i.e., biosynthesis of organic compounds) is concerned. We…
The overall frequency and other statistical properties of binary systems suggest that star formation is intrinsically a complex and chaotic process, and that most binaries and single stars actually originate from the decay of multiple…
The light received by source stars in microlensing events may be significantly polarized if both an efficient photon scattering mechanism is active in the source stellar atmosphere and a differential magnification is therein induced by the…
In this chapter we discuss the population and spectral synthesis of stellar populations. We describe the method required to achieve such synthesis and discuss examples where inclusion of interacting binaries are vital to reproducing the…
We propose a model for stellar binary systems consisting of a magnetic and a non-magnetic white-dwarf pair which is powered principally by electrical energy. In our model the luminosity is caused by resistive heating of the stellar…
The preponderance of binary systems in all known stellar populations makes them exciting dynamical agents for research on topics as varied as star formation, star-cluster dynamics and the interiors of young and old stars. Today we know that…
The occurrence of planets in binary star systems has been investigated via a variety of techniques that sample a wide range of semi-major axes, but with a preponderance of such results applicable to planets with semi-major axes less than a…
About half of all known stellar systems with Sun-like stars consist of two or more stars, significantly affecting the orbital stability of any planet in these systems. Here we study the onset of instability for an Earth-type planet that is…
Exoplanets orbiting M dwarf stars are a prime target in the search for life in the Universe. M dwarf stars are active, with powerful flares that could adversely impact prospects for life, though there are counter-arguments. Here, we turn…
Extrasolar planetary host stars are enriched in key planet-building elements. These enrichments have the potential to drastically alter the building blocks available for terrestrial planet formation. Here we report on the combination of…
One of the possible signs of life on distant habitable exoplanets is the red-edge, which is a rise in the reflectivity of planets between visible and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Previous studies suggested the possibility that the…
Stellar members of binary systems are formed from the same material, therefore they should be chemically identical. However, recent high-precision studies have unveiled chemical differences between the two members of binary pairs composed…
Aquatic photosynthesis plays a major role in carbon fixation and O$_2$ production on Earth. In this Letter, we analyze the prospects for oxygenic photosynthesis in aquatic environments on modern Earth-analogs around F-, G-, K- and M-type…
Using the Socrates photolysis scheme, we present newly calculated photolysis rates under modern Earth atmospheric conditions for species directly relevant to Earth and species relevant to different atmospheric compositions. We compare to a…
Photosynthesis is a mechanism developed by terrestrial life to utilize the energy from photons of solar origin for biological use. Subsurface regions are isolated from the photosphere, and consequently are incapable of utilizing this…
Approximately 60 percent of all stars in the solar neighbourhood (up to 80 percent in our Milky Way) are members of binary or multiple star systems. This fact led to the speculations that many more planets may exist in binary systems than…