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Terrestrial planets at the inner edge of the habitable zone of late-K and M-dwarf stars are expected to be in synchronous rotation, as a consequence of strong tidal interactions with their host stars. Previous global climate model (GCM)…

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…

Understanding when global glaciations occur on Earth-like planets is a major challenge in climate evolution research. Most models of how greenhouse gases like CO2 evolve with time on terrestrial planets are deterministic, but the complex,…

The chance that a planetary system will interact with another member of its host star's nascent cluster would be greatly increased if gas giant planets form in situ on wide orbits. In this paper, we explore the outcomes of planet-planet…

Robustly modeling the inner edge of the habitable zone is essential for determining the most promising potentially habitable exoplanets for atmospheric characterization. Global climate models (GCMs) have become the standard tool for…

High obliquity planets represent potentially extreme limits of terrestrial climate, as they exhibit large seasonality, a reversed annual-mean pole-to-equator gradient of stellar heating, and novel cryospheres. A suite of 3-D global climate…

Eccentricity is an important orbital parameter. Understanding its effect on planetary climate and habitability is critical for us to search for a habitable world beyond our solar system. The orbital configurations of M-dwarf planets are…

The majority of potentially habitable exoplanets detected orbit stars cooler than the Sun, and therefore are irradiated by a stellar spectrum peaking at longer wavelengths than that incident on Earth. Here, we present results from a set of…

We present an analytic model for the interaction between planetary atmospheres and stellar winds from main sequence M stars, with the purpose of obtaining a quick test-model that estimates the timescale for total atmospheric mass loss due…

Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor. The CO2 level is increased…

Stable, hydrogen-burning, M dwarf stars comprise about 75% of all stars in the Galaxy. They are extremely long-lived and because they are much smaller in mass than the Sun (between 0.5 and 0.08 MSun), their temperature and stellar…

Around 16% of the solar-like stars in our neighbourhood show IR-excesses due to debris discs and a fraction of them are known to host planets. We aim to determine in a homogeneous way the metallicity of a sample of stars with known debris…

Asteroid material is detected in white dwarfs (WDs) as atmospheric pollution by metals, in the form of gas/dust discs, or in photometric transits. Within the current paradigm, minor bodies need to be scattered, most likely by planets, into…

M- and K-dwarf stars make up 86% of the stellar population and host many promising astronomical targets for detecting habitable climates in the near future. Of the two, M dwarfs currently offer greater observational advantages and are home…

Planets that revolve around a binary pair of stars are known as circumbinary planets. The orbital motion of the stars around their center of mass causes a periodic variation in the total instellation incident upon a circumbinary planet.…

Ongoing and future space missions aim to identify potentially habitable planets in our Solar System and beyond. Planetary habitability is determined not only by a planet's current stellar insolation and atmospheric properties, but also by…

Dynamical considerations, presented herein via analytic scalings and numerical experiments, imply that Earth-mass planets accreting in regions that become habitable zones of M dwarf stars form within several million years. Temperatures in…

Terrestrial planets orbiting within the habitable zones of M-stars are likely to become tidally locked in a 1:1 spin:orbit configuration and are prime targets for future characterization efforts. An issue of importance for the potential…

Numerous stars exhibit surprisingly large variations in their refractory element abundances, often interpreted as signatures of planetary ingestion events. In this study, we propose that differences in the dust-to-gas ratio near stars…

In the outer regions of the habitable zone, the risk of transitioning into a globally frozen "snowball" state poses a threat to the habitability of planets with the capacity to host water-based life. We use a one-dimensional energy balance…