Related papers: A False Positive For Ocean Glint on Exoplanets: th…
Using a shallow water model with time-dependent forcing we show that the peak of an exoplanet thermal phase curve is, in general, offset from secondary eclipse when the planet is rotating. That is, the planetary hot-spot is offset from the…
This paper puts forward a possible new indicator for the presence of moderately advanced civilizations on transiting exoplanets. The idea is to examine the region of space around a planet where potential geostationary or geosynchronous…
A transiting planet eclipses part of the rotating stellar surface, thereby producing an anomalous Doppler shift of the stellar spectrum. Here I review how this "Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect" can be used to characterize exoplanetary systems.…
Eccentric planets may spend a significant portion of their orbits at large distances from their host stars, where low temperatures can cause atmospheric CO2 to condense out onto the surface, similar to the polar ice caps on Mars. The…
The next generation of high-contrast imaging instruments will provide the first unresolved image of an extrasolar planet. While the emitted infrared light from the planet in thermal equilibrium should show almost no phase effect, the…
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…
Before an exoplanet transit, atmospheric refraction bends light into the line of sight of an observer. The refracted light forms a stellar mirage, a distorted secondary image of the host star. I model this phenomenon and the resultant…
A reasonable basis for future astronomical investigations of exoplanets lies in our best knowledge of the planets and satellites in the Solar System. Solar System bodies exhibit a wide variety of surface environments, even including…
In circumstellar disks around young stars, the gravitational influence of nascent planets produces telltale patterns in density, temperature, and kinematics. To better understand these signatures, we first performed 3D hydrodynamical…
The tidal heating of hypothetical rocky (or terrestrial) extra-solar planets spans a wide range of values depending on stellar masses and initial orbits. Tidal heating may be sufficiently large (in many cases, in excess of radiogenic…
The climate of a terrestrial exoplanet is controlled by the type of host star, the orbital configuration and the characteristics of the atmosphere and the surface. Many rocky exoplanets have higher eccentricities than those in the Solar…
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…
Understanding the spectral and photometric variability of the Earth and the rest of the solar system planets has become of the utmost importance for the future characterization of rocky exoplanets. As this is not only interesting at present…
Photometric phase curves provide an important window onto exoplanetary atmospheres and potentially even their surfaces. With similar amplitudes to occultations but far longer baselines, they have a higher sensitivity to planetary photons at…
The fine precision of photometric data available from missions like Kepler provide researchers with the ability to measure changes in light on the order of tens of parts per million (ppm). This level of precision allows researchers to…
Planets with masses between 0.1 - 10 M_earth are believed to host dense atmospheres. These atmospheres can play an important role on the planet's spin evolution, since thermal atmospheric tides, driven by the host star, may counterbalance…
The distribution of instellation at the top of a planet's atmosphere or surface is usually calculated using the inverse-square law of radiation. This is based on the assumption that the host star is far enough to be considered a point-sized…
Finding potential life harboring exo-Earths is one of the aims of exoplanetary science. Detecting signatures of life in exoplanets will likely first be accomplished by determining the bulk composition of the planetary atmosphere via…
Planetary climates are strongly affected by planetary orbital parameters such as obliquity, eccentricity, and precession. In exoplanetary systems, exo-terrestrial planets should have various obliquities. High-obliquity planets would have…
Tidally locked terrestrial planets around low-mass stars are the prime targets of finding potentially habitable exoplanets. Several atmospheric general circulation models have been employed to simulate their possible climates, however,…