Related papers: Light and Life: Exotic Photosynthesis in Binary St…
In the JWST, Extremely Large Telescopes, and LUVOIR era, we expect to characterize a number of potentially habitable Earth-like exoplanets. However, the characterization of these worlds depends crucially on the accuracy of theoretical…
Knowledge of the binary population in stellar groupings provides important information about the outcome of the star forming process in different environments. Binarity is also a key ingredient in stellar population studies and is a…
Stellar flares present challenges to the potential habitability of terrestrial planets orbiting M dwarf stars through inducing changes in the atmospheric composition and irradiating the planet's surface in large amounts of ultraviolet…
In the last two decades about a dozen methods were invented which derive, from a series of composite spectra over the orbit, the spectra of individual components in binary and multiple systems. Reconstructed spectra can then be analyzed…
The detection and characterization of Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars is a primary science motivation for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. However, the current best technology is not yet advanced enough to reach the 10^-10…
Stellar activity can reveal itself in the form of radiation (eg, enhanced X-ray coronal emission, flares) and particles (eg, winds, coronal mass ejections). Together, these phenomena shape the space weather around (exo)planets. As stars…
Contact binaries can be used for distance determinations of stellar systems. They are easy to discover and identify and are very abundant among solar-type stars, particularly for M_V > +3. The period - luminosity - colour (PLC) relations…
Symbiotic stars, interacting binaries composed of a cool giant and a hot compact companion, exhibit complex variability across the electromagnetic spectrum. Over the past decades, large-scale photometric and spectroscopic surveys from…
Binary-star exoplanetary systems are now known to be common, for both wide and close binaries. However, their orbital evolution is generally unsolvable. Special cases of the N-body problem which are in fact completely solvable include…
One of the great quests of astronomy is to obtain the spectrum of a terrestrial planet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, and the dominant challenge in doing so is to isolate the light of the planet from that of the star.…
The present dynamical configuration of planets in binary star systems may not reflect their formation process since the binary orbit may have changed in the past after the planet formation process was completed. An observed binary system…
Within the next few years, several instruments aiming at imaging extrasolar planets will see first light. In parallel, low mass planets are being searched around red dwarfs which offer more favorable conditions, both for radial velocity…
The unexpected diversity of exoplanets includes a growing number of super- Earth planets, i.e., exoplanets with masses of up to several Earth masses and a similar chemical and mineralogical composition as Earth. We present a thermal…
Recent radial velocity observations have indicated that Jovian-type planets can exist in moderately close binary star systems. Numerical simulations of the dynamical stability of terrestrial-class planets in such environments have shown…
Massive stars feature highly energetic stellar winds that interact whenever two such stars are bound in a binary system. The signatures of these interactions are nowadays found over a wide range of wavelengths, including the radio domain,…
Why do plants reflect in the green and have a 'red edge' in the red, and should extrasolar photosynthesis be the same? We provide: 1) a brief review of how photosynthesis works; 2) an overview of the diversity of photosynthetic organisms,…
A new type of high-energy binary system has been revealed by the INTEGRAL satellite. These sources are being unveiled by means of multi-wavelength optical, near- and mid-infrared observations. Among these sources, two distinct classes are…
With the increasing number of detected exoplanet samples, the statistical properties of planetary systems have become much clearer. In this review, we summarize the major statistics that have been revealed mainly by radial velocity and…
Binary pulsar systems are superb probes of stellar and binary evolution and the physics of extreme environments. In a survey with the Arecibo telescope, we have found PSR J1903+0327, a radio pulsar with a rotational period of 2.15 ms in a…
Polarized scattering in planetary atmospheres is computed in the context of exoplanets. The problem of polarized radiative transfer is solved for a general case of absorption and scattering, while Rayleigh and Mie polarized scattering are…