Related papers: An Analytic Method to determine Habitable Zones fo…
An analysis of the currently known exoplanets in the habitable zones (HZs) of their host stars is of interest in both the wake of the NASA Kepler mission and with prospects for expanding the known planet population through future ground-…
Motivated by the diversity of circumstellar planets in binary stars and the strong effects of the secular resonances of Jupiter and Saturn on the formation and architecture of the inner solar system, we have launched an expansive project on…
A habitable zone of a star is defined as a range of orbits within which a rocky planet can support liquid water on its surface. The most intriguing question driving the search for habitable planets is whether they host life. But is the age…
When searching for inhabited exoplanets, understanding the boundaries of the habitable zone around the parent star is key. If life can strongly influence its global environment, then we would expect the boundaries of the habitable zone to…
It is now clear that a binary formation pathway is responsible for a significant fraction of planetary nebulae, and this increased sample of known binaries means that we are now in a position to begin to constrain their influence on the…
One of the most surprising discoveries of extrasolar planets is the detection of planets in moderately close binary star systems. The Jovian-type planets in the two binaries of Gamma Cephei and GJ 86 have brought to the forefront questions…
Stellar radiation has conservatively been used as the key constraint to planetary habitability. We review here the effects of tides, exerted by the host star on the planet, on the evolution of the planetary spin. Tides initially drive the…
M type stars are good targets in the search for habitable extrasolar planets. Because of their low effective temperatures, the habitable zone of M stars is very close to the star itself. For planets close to their stars, tidal heating plays…
The current progress in the detection of terrestrial type exoplanets has opened a new avenue in the characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres and in the search for biosignatures of life with the upcoming ground-based and space missions.…
A planet's climate can be strongly affected by its orbital eccentricity and obliquity. Here we use a 1-dimensional energy balance model modified to include a simple runaway greenhouse (RGH) parameterization to explore the effects of these…
The habitable zone is the region around a star where standing bodies of liquid water can be stable on a planetary surface. Its width is often assumed to be dictated by the efficiency of the carbonate-silicate cycle, which has maintained…
Continuous habitability of a planet is a critical condition for advanced forms of life to appear, but it can be endangered by astronomical events such as stellar encounters. The purpose of this study is to analyze close stellar encounters…
The discovery of planets in binaries is one the most interesting outcomes of planetary research. With the growing number of discoveries has also grown the interest on describing their formation, long-term evolution and potential…
A symplectic integrator algorithm suitable for hierarchical triple systems is formulated and tested. The positions of the stars are followed in hierarchical Jacobi coordinates, whilst the planets are referenced purely to their primary. The…
The catalog of stellar evolution tracks discussed in our previous work is meant to help characterize exoplanet host-stars of interest for follow-up observations with future missions like JWST. However, the utility of the catalog has been…
A rigorous definition of the habitable zone and its dependence on planetary properties is part of the search for habitable exoplanets. In this work, we use the general circulation model ExoCAM to determine how the inner edge of the…
Straight-forward derivation of planetary parameters can only be achieved in transiting planetary systems. However, planetary attributes such as radius and mass strongly depend on stellar host parameters. Discovering a transit host star to…
Exoplanets are typically thought to form in protoplanetary disks left over from protostellar disk of their newly formed host star. However, additional planetary formation and evolution routes may exist in old evolved binary systems. Here we…
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…
The concept of a system-wide measure of the sustainment of life (habitability) for space-faring interplanetary species is introduced and explored. Although largely agnostic to the details of how interplanetary life might operate (e.g., via…