Related papers: Lightning Chemistry on Earth-like Exoplanets
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…
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…
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…
This work presents theoretical studies which combine aspects of combustion and explosion theory with exoplanetary atmospheric science. Super Earths could possess a large amount of molecular hydrogen depending on disk, planetary and stellar…
Clouds form on extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs where lightning could occur. Lightning is a tracer of atmospheric convection, cloud formation and ionization processes as known from the Solar System, and may be significant for the…
Inferences of molecular compositions of exoplanetary atmospheres have generally focused on C, H, and O-bearing molecules. Recently, additional absorption in HST WFC3 transmission spectra around 1.55$\mu$m has been attributed to…
The chemical environments of young planets are assumed to be largely influenced by impacts of bodies lingering on unstable trajectories after the dissolution of the protoplanetary disk. We explore the chemical consequences of impacts within…
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…
Our brains are hardwired for pattern recognition as correlations are useful for predicting and understanding nature. As more exoplanet atmospheres are being characterized with JWST, we are starting to unveil their properties on a population…
It is now understood that the accretion of terrestrial planets naturally involves giant collisions, the moon-forming impact being a well known example. In the aftermath of such collisions the surface of the surviving planet is very hot and…
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…
Measuring the metallicity and carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio in exoplanet atmospheres is a fundamental step towards constraining the dominant chemical processes at work and, if in equilibrium, revealing planet formation histories.…
We use thermodynamic calculations to model atmospheric chemistry on terrestrial exoplanets that are hot enough for chemical equilibira between the atmosphere and lithosphere, as on Venus. The results of our calculations place constraints on…
Knowing the bulk elemental abundances of an exoplanetary atmosphere is not an easy task, but it is crucial to understand the formation history of planets. The purpose of this work is to show that the observability of TiO features at optical…
Photochemistry has the potential to substantially impact the atmospheric composition of exoplanets with consequences on the radiative transfer, thermal structure and dynamics of the atmospheres, particularly in UV-rich stellar environments.…
Exoplanets that receive stellar irradiance of approximately Earth's or less have been discovered and many are suitable for spectral characterization. Here we focus on the temperate planets that have massive H2-dominated atmospheres, and…
Characterizing temperate exoplanet atmospheres remains challenging due to their small size and low temperatures. Recent JWST observations provide valuable data, but their interpretation has led to diverging conclusions. Complementary…
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,…
Using forward models for representative exoplanet atmospheres and a radiometric instrument model, we have generated synthetic observational data to explore how well the major C- and O-bearing chemical species (CO, CO2, CH4, and H2O),…