Related papers: An ancient extrasolar system with five sub-Earth-s…
At redshift z = 2, when the Universe was just three billion years old, half of the most massive galaxies were extremely compact and had already exhausted their fuel for star formation(1-4). It is believed that they were formed in intense…
Planets and planet candidates are subjected to great investigation in recent years. In this study, we analyse 20 planet and planet-candidate host stars at different evolutionary phases. We construct stellar interior models of the host stars…
We study the orbital architecture, physical characteristics of planets, formation and long-term evolution of the Kepler-30 planetary system, detected and announced in 2012 by the KEPLER team. We show that the Kepler-30 system belongs to a…
Despite the importance of Jupiter and Saturn to Earth's formation and habitability, there has not yet been a comprehensive observational study of how giant exoplanets correlate with the architectural properties of close-in,…
There is growing evidence that the population of close-in planets discovered by the Kepler mission was sculpted by atmospheric loss, though the typical timescale for this evolution is not well-constrained. Among a highly complete sample of…
Dynamical evolution within planetary systems can cause planets to be engulfed by their host stars. Following engulfment, the stellar photosphere abundance pattern will reflect accretion of rocky material from planets. Multi-star systems are…
A survey of currently known planet-hosting stars indicates that approximately 25% of extrasolar planetary systems are within dual-star environments. Several of these systems contain stellar companions on moderately close orbits, implying…
The terrestrial and gas-giant planets in our solar system may represent some prototypes for planets around other stars; the exoplanets because most stars have similar overall elemental abundances as our sun. The solar system planets…
Current theories of planetary evolution predict that infant giant planets have large radii and very low densities before they slowly contract to reach their final size after about several hundred million years. These theoretical…
The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…
Previous work concerning planet formation around low-mass stars has often been limited to large planets and individual systems. As current surveys routinely detect planets down to terrestrial size in these systems, a more holistic approach…
Planets intermediate in size between the Earth and Neptune, and orbiting closer to their host stars than Mercury does the Sun, are the most common type of planet revealed by exoplanet surveys over the last quarter century. Results from…
The nearly circular (mean eccentricity <e>~0.06) and coplanar (mean mutual inclination <i>~3 deg) orbits of the Solar System planets motivated Kant and Laplace to put forth the hypothesis that planets are formed in disks, which has…
Hundreds of exoplanets between 1-1.8 times the size of the Earth have been discovered on close in orbits. However, these planets show such a diversity in densities that some appear to be made entirely of iron, while others appear to host…
The last several years have brought about a dynamic shift in the view of exoplanetary systems in the post-main sequence, perhaps epitomized by the evidence for surviving rocky planetary bodies at white dwarfs. Coinciding with the launch of…
We constrain the intrinsic architecture of Kepler planetary systems by modeling the observed multiplicities of the transiting planets (tranets) and their transit timing variations (TTVs). We robustly determine that the fraction of Sun-like…
The Kepler mission has recently discovered a number of exoplanetary systems, such as Kepler-11 and Kepler-32, in which ensembles of several planets are found in very closely packed orbits (often within a few percent of an AU of one…
For centuries, humanity wondered if there were other worlds like ours in the Universe. For about a quarter of a century, we have known that planetary systems exist around other stars, and more than 3800 exoplanetary systems have been…
The Kepler telescope has discovered over 4,000 planets (candidates) by searching ? 200,000 stars over a wide range of distance (order of kpc) in our Galaxy. Characterizing the kinematic properties (e.g., Galactic component membership and…