Related papers: Lightning climatology of exoplanets and brown dwar…
Lightning is an important electrical phenomenon, known to exist in several Solar System planets. It carries information on convection and cloud formation, and may be important for pre-biotic chemistry. Exoplanets and brown dwarfs have been…
Lightning is present in all solar system planets which form clouds in their atmospheres. Cloud formation outside our solar system is possible in objects with much higher temperatures than on Earth or on Jupiter: Brown dwarfs and giant…
Observations and models suggest that the conditions to develop lightning may be present in cloud-forming extrasolar planetary and brown dwarf atmospheres. Whether lightning on these objects is similar to or very different from what is known…
The study of the composition of brown dwarf atmospheres helped to understand their formation and evolution. Similarly, the study of exoplanet atmospheres is expected to constrain their formation and evolutionary states. We use results from…
Cloudy atmospheres produce electric discharges, including lightning. Lightning, in turn, provides sufficient energy to break down air molecules into reactive species and thereby affects the atmospheric composition. The climate of tidally…
Extrasolar planets appear in a chemical diversity unseen in our own solar system. Despite their atmospheres being cold, continuous and transient plasma processes do affect these atmosphere where clouds form with great efficiency. Clouds can…
More than 4000 planet are known that orbit stars other than our Sun. Many harbor a dynamic atmosphere that is cold enough that cloud particles can form in abundance. The diversity of exoplanets leads to differences in cloud coverage…
Mineral clouds in substellar atmospheres play a special role as a catalyst for a variety of charge processes. If clouds are charged, the surrounding environment becomes electrically activated, and ensembles of charged grains are…
Lightning induced radio emission has been observed on solar system planets. Lecavelier des Etangs et al. [2013] carried out radio transit observations of the exoplanet HAT-P-11b, and suggested a tentative detection of a radio signal. Here,…
While lightning activity in Venus is still controversial, its existence in Jupiter and Saturn was first detected by the Voyager missions and later on confirmed by Cassini and New Horizons optical recordings in the case of Jupiter, and…
Determining the habitability and interpreting atmospheric spectra of exoplanets requires understanding their atmospheric physics and chemistry. We use a 3-D Coupled Climate-Chemistry Model, the Met Office Unified Model with the UK Chemistry…
This review presents an insight into our current knowledge of the atmospheres of the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the satellite Titan, and those of exoplanets. It deals with the thermal structure, aerosol…
Recent Juno observations have greatly extended the temporal and spatial coverage of lightning detection on Jupiter. We use these data to constrain a model of moist convection and lightning generation in Jupiter's atmosphere, and derive a…
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…
Lightning has been suggested to play a role in triggering the occurrence of bio-ready chemical species. Future missions (PLATO, ARIEL, HWO, LIFE) and ground-based ELTs will investigate the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets. We…
Signs of lightning on Venus have long been sought, including by space missions and ground-based telescopes searching for optical flashes, plasma waves, or radio signatures. These efforts have yielded conflicting findings regarding the…
We present a model for lightning shock induced chemistry that can be applied to atmospheres of arbitrary H/C/N/O chemistry, hence for extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs. The model couples hydrodynamics and the STAND2015 kinetic gas-phase…
Lightning was detected by Voyager 2 at Uranus and Neptune, and weaker electrical processes also occur throughout planetary atmospheres from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) ionisation. Lightning is an indicator of convection, whereas electrical…
Lightning in planetary atmospheres is now a well-established concept. Here we discuss the available detection techniques for, and observations of, planetary lightning by spacecraft, planetary landers and, increasingly, sophisticated…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the last decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods and even wind speeds to be measured.…