Related papers: Obliquity and Eccentricity Constraints For Terrest…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
Atmospheric compositions for rocky exoplanets will depend strongly on the bulk planetary composition and the orbital position of the planet. Non-traditional gases may be present in the atmospheres of exceptionally hot planets. Atmospheres…
The Kepler era of exoplanetary discovery has presented the Astronomical community with a cornucopia of planetary systems very different from the one which we inhabit. It has long been known that Jupiter plays a major role in the orbital…
(Abridged) In planetary systems with two or more giant planets, dynamical instabilities can lead to collisions or ejections through strong planet--planet scattering. Previous studies for simple initial configurations with two equal-mass…
The obliquity of the Earth, which controls our seasons, varies by only ~2.5 degrees over ~40,000 years, and its eccentricity varies by only ~0.05 over 100,000 years. Nonetheless, these small variations influence Earth's ice ages. For…
In most extrasolar planetary systems, the present orbits of known giant planets admit the existence of stable terrestrial planets. Those same giant planets, however, have typically eccentric orbits that hint at violent early dynamics less…
We present a time-dependent radiative model for the atmosphere of the transiting planets that take into account the eccentricity of their orbit. We investigate the temporal temperature and flux variations due to the planet-star distance…
For a hypothetical planet on a highly eccentric orbit, we have calculated the osculating orbital parameters and its closest approaches to Earth and Moon over a period of 750 kyr. The approaches which are close enough to influence the…
Long-period transiting exoplanets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Their studies grant insights into planetary evolution akin to the Solar System planets, which, in…
There exists a positive correlation between orbital eccentricity and the average stellar flux that planets receive from their parent star. Often, though, it is assumed that the average equilibrium temperature would correspondingly increase…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
Direct-imaging techniques of exoplanets have made significant progress recently, and will eventually enable to monitor photometric and spectroscopic signals of earth-like habitable planets in the future. The presence of clouds, however,…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
We present a time-dependent radiative model for the atmosphere of extrasolar planets that takes into account the eccentricity of their orbit. In addition to the modulation of stellar irradiation by the varying planet-star distance, the…
Recent analyses of Kepler space telescope data reveal that transiting planets with orbital periods shorter than about 2-3 days are generally observed around late-type stars with rotation periods longer than about 5-10 days. We investigate…
NASA's Kepler mission revealed that $\sim 30\%$ of Solar-type stars harbor planets with sizes between that of Earth and Neptune on nearly circular and co-planar orbits with periods less than 100 days. Such short-period compact systems are…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
The investigation of planets around other stars began with the study of gas giants, but is now extending to the discovery and characterization of super-Earths and terrestrial planets. Motivated by this observational tide, we survey the…
A planet's climate can be strongly affected by its orbital eccentricity and obliquity. Here we use a 1-dimensional energy balance model modified to include a simple runaway greenhouse (RGH) parameterization to explore the effects of these…
We present three-dimensional atmospheric circulation models of a hypothetical "warm Jupiter" planet, for a range of possible obliquities from 0-90 degrees. We model a Jupiter-mass planet on a 10-day orbit around a Sun-like star, since this…