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In recent years, a vast increase in spectroscopic observations of transiting exoplanets has for the first time allowed us to search for broad trends in their atmospheric properties. Analysis of these observations has revealed that, even for…
Auroras are emissions in a planetary atmosphere caused by its interactions with the surrounding plasma environment. They have been observed in most planets and some moons of the solar system. Since their first discovery in 2005, Mars…
The study of the differences detected between the observed and the predicted positions of Uranus taking only the ancient planets into account led to the discovery of planet Neptune in 1846. This event remains one of the best accomplishments…
The hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the past two decades offer a new perspective on planetary structure. Instead of being the archetypal examples of planets, those of our Solar System are merely possible outcomes of…
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…
We present results from an atmospheric circulation study of nine hot Jupiters that comprise a large transmission spectral survey using the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. These observations exhibit a range of spectral behavior over…
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
A correlation between giant-planet mass and atmospheric heavy elemental abundance was first noted in the past century from observations of planets in our own Solar System, and has served as a cornerstone of planet formation theory. Using…
Plutinos are Kuiper-belt objects that share the 3:2 Neptune resonance with Pluto. The long-term stability of Plutino orbits depends on their eccentricity. Plutinos with eccentricities close to Pluto (fractional eccentricity difference…
Pluto's recently discovered minor moons, Nix and Hydra, have almost circular orbits, and are nearly coplanar with Charon, Pluto's major moon. This is surprising because tidal interactions with Pluto are too weak to damp their…
For its beautiful rings, active atmosphere and mysterious magnetic field, Saturn is a fascinating planet. It also holds some of the keys to understanding the formation of our Solar System and the evolution of giant planets in general. While…
One focus of modern astronomy is to detect temperate terrestrial exoplanets well-suited for atmospheric characterisation. A milestone was recently achieved with the detection of three Earth-sized planets transiting (i.e. passing in front…
Energy limits that delineate the `habitable zone' for exoplanets depend on a given exoplanet's net planetary albedo (or `Bond albedo'). We here demonstrate that the planetary albedo of an observed exoplanet is limited by the above-cloud…
In contrast with regional primarily methane composition, Kiladze and its surroundings exhibit a water-ice spectral signature that carries an ammoniated compound, similar to two other cryovolcanic sites on Pluto. The faulted structure of…
In the last 15 years, since the discovery of the first low-mass planets beyond the solar system, there has been tremendous progress in understanding the diversity of (super-)Earth and sub-Neptune exoplanets. Especially the influence of the…
Pluto's two small satellites, temporarily designated S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2, were observed on four dates (15.1 and 18.1 May 2005, 15.7 February 2006, and 2.8 March 2006) using the Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) Advanced Camera for…
There are no planets intermediate in size between Earth and Neptune in our Solar System, yet these objects are found around a substantial fraction of other stars. Population statistics show that close-in planets in this size range bifurcate…
The Pluto-Charon (PC) pair is usually thought of as a binary in the dual synchronous state, which is the endpoint of its tidal evolution. The discovery of the small circumbinary moons, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra, placed close to the…
An analytic expression for the variation in surface and sub-surface temperature is developed for worlds whose surface pressures are nearly constant with latitude and longitude and whose atmospheres are in vapor-pressure equilibrium with the…
Uranus and Neptune, and their diverse satellite and ring systems, represent the least explored environments of our Solar System, and yet may provide the archetype for the most common outcome of planetary formation throughout our galaxy. Ice…