Related papers: Galactic cosmic rays on extrasolar Earth-like plan…
Context: The principle definition of habitability for exoplanets is whether they can sustain liquid water on their surfaces, i.e. that they orbit within the habitable zone. However, the planet's magnetosphere should also be considered,…
The orbital regime of a terrestrial planet plays a significant role in shaping its atmospheric dynamics, climate, and hence potential habitability. The orbit is also likely to play a role in shaping the response of a planetary atmosphere to…
Atmospheric ozone plays an important role on the temperature structure of the atmosphere. However, it has not been included in previous studies on the effect of an increasing solar radiation on the Earth's climate. Here we study the climate…
We study the impact of multi-layered clouds (low-level water and high-level ice clouds) on the thermal emission spectra of Earth-like planets orbiting different types of stars. Clouds have an important influence on such planetary emission…
Planet Earth has evolved from an entirely anoxic planet with possibly a different tectonic regime to the oxygenated world with horizontal plate tectonics that we know today. For most of this time, Earth has been inhabited by a purely…
Energetic particles, such as stellar cosmic rays, produced at a heightened rate by active stars (like the young Sun) may have been important for the origin of life on Earth and other exoplanets. Here we compare, as a function of stellar…
An Earth-like planetary magnetic field has been widely invoked as a requirement for habitability as it purportedly mitigates the fluxes of ionizing radiation reaching the surface and the escape of neutrals and ions from the atmosphere.…
Low energy galactic cosmic rays as well as particles accelerated to high energies either at the solar surface or in the interplanetary medium have access to the atmosphere above a given position on the Earth depending upon the state of the…
A planet's spectrum is dynamic and only represents a time-dependent snapshot of its properties. Changing atmospheric conditions due to climate and weather patterns, particularly variation in cloud cover, can significantly affect the…
In the last decade, about a dozen giant exoplanets have been directly imaged in the IR as companions to young stars. With photometry and spectroscopy of these planets in hand from new extreme coronagraphic instruments such as SPHERE at VLT…
Ozone is a potential biosignature and disambuguator between Earth-like and Venus-like exoplanets due to its association on Earth with photosynthetically produced oxygen (O$_2$). However, the existence of ozone in Venus's observable…
Understanding whether M-dwarf stars may host habitable planets with Earth-like atmospheres and biospheres is a major goal in exoplanet research. If such planets exist, the question remains as to whether they could be identified via spectral…
Cosmic rays can interact with the solar atmosphere and produce a slew of secondary messengers, making the Sun a bright gamma-ray source in the sky. Detailed observations with Fermi-LAT have shown that these interactions must be strongly…
Cosmic rays are an important factor of space weather determining radiation conditions near the Earth and it seems to be essential to clarify radiation conditions near extrasolar planets too. Last year a terrestrial planet candidate was…
The effects of cosmic-ray diffusion and radiative cooling on the structure of the Galactic wind are studied using a steady state approximation. It is known that realistic cooling processes suppress the wind from launching. The effects of…
A key goal of heliophysics is to understand how cosmic rays propagate in the solar system's complex, dynamic environment. One observable is solar modulation, i.e., how the flux and spectrum of cosmic rays changes as they propagate inward.…
The oxidation of rocky planet surfaces and atmospheres, which arises from the twin forces of stellar nucleosynthesis and gravitational differentiation, is a universal process of key importance to habitability and exoplanet biosignature…
Simulating the irradiation of planetary atmospheres by cosmic ray particles requires, among others, the ability to understand and to quantify the interactions of charged particles with planetary magnetic fields. Here we present a process…
We present a formalism for a first-order estimation of the magnetosphere radius of exoplanets orbiting stars in the range from 0.08 to 1.3 Mo. With this radius, we estimate the atmospheric surface that is not protected from stellar winds.…
The effects of multi-layered clouds in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets orbiting different types of stars are studied. The radiative effects of cloud particles are directly correlated with their wavelength-dependent optical properties.…