Related papers: Chemical differentiation of planets: a core issue
Helioseismology has shown that the chemical composition of the Sun has changed over its lifetime. The surface abundance of helium and heavy elements is believed to have decreased by up to 10% relative to their initial values. However, this…
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…
The Sun has been found to be depleted in refractory (rock-forming) elements relative to nearby solar analogs, suggesting a potential indicator of planet formation. Given the small amplitude of the depletion, previous analyses have primarily…
Super-Earths are highly irradiated, small planets with bulk densities approximately consistent with Earth. We construct combined interior-atmosphere models of super-Earths that trace the partitioning of water throughout a planet, including…
The unknown constituents of the interior of our home planet have provoked the human imagination and driven scientific exploration. We herein demonstrate that large neutrino detectors could be used in the near future to significantly improve…
Extrasolar planet host stars have been found to be enriched in key planet-building elements. These enrichments have the potential to drastically alter the composition of material available for terrestrial planet formation. Here we report on…
Hot rocky super-Earths are thought to be sufficiently irradiated by their host star to melt their surface and thus allow for long-lasting magma oceans. Some processes have been proposed for such planets to have retained primordial hydrogen…
Given the central role of carbon in the chemistry of life, it is a fundamental question as to how carbon is supplied to the Earth, in what form and when. We provide an accounting of carbon found in solar system bodies, in particular a…
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…
The achievable level of precision on photospheric abundances of stars is a major limiting factor on investigations of exoplanet host star characteristics, the chemical histories of star clusters, and the evolution of the Milky Way and other…
The atmospheric chemical composition of a hot Jupiter can lead to insights into where in its natal protoplanetary disk it formed and its subsequent migration pathway. We use a 1-D chemical kinetics code to compute a suite of models across a…
The giant planet-metallicity correlation revealed that planetary formation depends on the stellar properties. There is growing evidence that it is also valid for smaller hot planets, but it is not clear whether elements other than iron also…
We know that giant planets played a crucial role in the making of our Solar System. The discovery of giant planets orbiting other stars is a formidable opportunity to learn more about these objects, what is their composition, how various…
We present new estimates of protosolar elemental abundances based on an improved combination of solar photospheric abundances and CI chondritic abundances. These new estimates indicate CI chondrites and solar abundances are consistent for…
It is now understood that the accretion of terrestrial planets naturally involves giant collisions, the moon-forming impact being a well known example. In the aftermath of such collisions the surface of the surviving planet is very hot and…
The composition of planets is largely determined by the chemical and dynamical evolution of the disk during planetesimal formation and growth. To predict the diversity of exoplanet compositions, previous works modeled planetesimal…
Meteorites are classified as either non-carbonaceous- (NC) or carbonaceous (CC), representing bodies that likely formed in the inner- or outer solar system, respectively. Despite its location in the inner solar system, the Earth is thought…
This whitepaper discusses the diversity of exoplanets that could be detected by future observations, so that comparative exoplanetology can be performed in the upcoming era of large space-based flagship missions. The primary focus will be…
Systematic abundance differences that depend on the condensation temperatures of elements have been observed, in particular for stars similar to the Sun; solar twins and solar analogs. Similar differences have also recently been shown to…
We review the state of knowledge on the origin of Earth's water. Empirical constraints come from chemical and isotopic measurements of solar system bodies and of Earth itself. Dynamical models have revealed pathways for water delivery to…