Related papers: Clouds in Super-Earth Atmospheres: Chemical Equili…
The ubiquity of clouds in the atmospheres of exoplanets, especially of super-Earths, is one of the outstanding issues for transmission spectra survey. The understanding about the formation process of clouds in super-Earths is necessary to…
Transmission spectrum surveys have suggested the ubiquity of high-altitude clouds in exoplanetary atmospheres. Theoretical studies have investigated the formation processes of the high-altitude clouds; however, cloud particles have been…
Extrasolar super-Earths (1-10 M$_{\earth}$) are likely to exist with a wide range of atmospheres. Some super-Earths may be able to retain massive hydrogen-rich atmospheres. Others might never accumulate hydrogen or experience significant…
We present three-dimensional atmospheric circulation models of GJ 1214b, a 2.7 Earth-radius, 6.5 Earth-mass super Earth detected by the MEarth survey. Here we explore the planet's circulation as a function of atmospheric metallicity and…
A substantial number of super-Earths have been discovered, and atmospheres of transiting super-Earths have also been observed by transmission spectroscopy. Several lines of observational evidence indicate that most super-Earths do not…
Observations of exoplanet atmospheres have revealed the presence of cloud particles in their atmospheres. 3D modelling of cloud formation in atmospheres of extrasolar planets coupled to the atmospheric dynamics has long been a challenge. We…
Recent observations of the transiting super-Earth GJ 1214b reveal that its atmosphere may be hydrogen-rich or water-rich in nature, with clouds or hazes potentially affecting its transmission spectrum in the optical and very-near-IR. Here…
Warm Saturn type exoplanets orbiting M-dwarfs are particularly suitable for in-depth cloud characterisation through transmission spectroscopy due to their favourable stellar to planetary radius contrast. However, modelling cloud formation…
Clouds are ubiquitous\, -- \,they arise for every solar system planet that possesses an atmosphere and have also been suggested as a leading mechanism for obscuring spectral features in exoplanet observations. As exoplanet observations…
Super-Earths are the most abundant planets known to date and are characterized by having sizes between that of Earth and Neptune, typical orbital periods of less than 100 days and gaseous envelopes that are often massive enough to…
Compositional convection is atmospheric mixing driven by density variations caused by compositional gradients. Previous studies have suggested that compositional gradients of atmospheric trace species within planetary atmospheres can impact…
3D atmosphere model results are used to comparatively study the kinetic, non-equilibrium cloud formation in the atmospheres of two example planets guided by the giant gas planets HD209458b and HD189733b. Rather independently of hydrodynamic…
The riddle posed by super-Earths (1-4$R_\oplus$, 2-20$M_\oplus$) is that they are not Jupiters: their core masses are large enough to trigger runaway gas accretion, yet somehow super-Earths accreted atmospheres that weigh only a few percent…
The lowest-mass stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets present challenges and opportunities for understanding dynamics and cloud formation processes in low-temperature atmospheres. For brown dwarfs, the formation, variation and rapid…
We used chemical equilibrium and chemical kinetic calculations to model chemistry of the volatiles released by heating different types of carbonaceous, ordinary and enstatite chondritic material as a function of temperature and pressure.…
We present hydrostatic equilibrium models of spherical, self-gravitating clouds of helium and molecular hydrogen, focusing on the cold, high-density regime where solid- or liquid-hydrogen can form. The resulting structures have masses from…
Clouds have a strong impact on the climate of planetary atmospheres. The potential scattering greenhouse effect of CO2 ice clouds in the atmospheres of terrestrial extrasolar planets is of particular interest because it might influence the…
[Abridged] Combining a time-dependent astrochemical model with a model of planet formation and migration, we compute the carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) of a range of planetary embryos starting their formation in the inner solar system (1-3…
We examine the possibility that icy super-Earth mass planets, formed over long time scales (0.1--1~Gyr) at large distances ($\sim$ 200--1000~AU) from their host stars, will develop massive H-rich atmospheres. Within the interior of these…
Aspects of our Solar System's formation are deduced from observations of the chemical nature of matter. Massive cores are indicative of terrestrial-planet-composition-similarity to enstatite chondrite meteorites, whose highly-reduced state…