Related papers: Galactic Effects on Habitability
In the outer regions of the habitable zone, the risk of transitioning into a globally frozen "snowball" state poses a threat to the habitability of planets with the capacity to host water-based life. We use a one-dimensional energy balance…
Recent radial velocity observations have indicated that Jovian-type planets can exist in moderately close binary star systems. Numerical simulations of the dynamical stability of terrestrial-class planets in such environments have shown…
We investigate the effects of correlated global regulation mechanisms, especially Galactic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), on the temporal distribution of hypothetical inhabited planets, using simple Monte Carlo numerical experiments. Starting…
As a copious source of gamma-rays, a nearby Galactic Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) can be a threat to life. Using recent determinations of the rate of GRBs, their luminosity function and properties of their host galaxies, we estimate the…
Star and planet formation are inextricably linked. In the earliest phases of the collapse of a protostar a disc forms around the young star and such discs are observed for the first several million years of a star's life. It is within these…
Young, massive star clusters are the most notable and significant end products of violent star-forming episodes triggered by galaxy collisions, mergers, and close encounters. Their contribution to the total luminosity induced by such…
With n-body simulations, we model terrestrial circumbinary planet (CBP) formation with an initial surface density profile motivated by hydrodynamic circumbinary gas disc simulations. The binary plays an important role in shaping the initial…
Massive stars dominate the radiative and mechanical feedback of young stellar populations, yet their intense ultraviolet fields and strong winds are typically presumed to preclude Earth-like habitability. We quantify this expectation by…
A survey of currently known planet-hosting stars indicates that approximately 25% of extrasolar planetary systems are within dual-star environments. Several of these systems contain stellar companions on moderately close orbits, implying…
The large-scale environment of the cosmic web is believed to impact galaxy evolution, but there is still no consensus regarding the mechanisms. We use a semi-analytic model (SAM) galaxy catalog to study the star formation and dust content…
The stars that populate the solar neighbourhood were formed in stellar clusters. Through N-body simulations of these clusters, we measure the rate of close encounters between stars. By monitoring the interaction histories of each star, we…
Stellar elemental abundances direct impact planetary interior structure and mineralogy, surface composition, and life. However, the different communities that are necessary for planetary habitability exploration (astrophysics, planetary…
Cosmic rays can penetrate planetary atmospheres driving the formation of prebiotic molecules, which are important for the origin of life. We calculate the Galactic cosmic ray fluxes in the habitable zone of five nearby, well-studied…
The present dynamical configuration of planets in binary star systems may not reflect their formation process since the binary orbit may have changed in the past after the planet formation process was completed. An observed binary system…
High-energy radiation caused by exoplanetary space weather events from planet-hosting stars can play a crucial role in conditions promoting or destroying habitability in addition to the conventional factors. In this paper, we present the…
We argue that all transient searches for planets in globular clusters have a very low detection probability. Planets of low metallicity stars typically do not reside at small orbital separations. The dependance of planetary system…
Trajectories of test particles in a time-varying nonspherical gravitational potential model of our Galaxy are considered. The role of the quadrupole component of the potential, which at distances greater than 50 kpc is associated with the…
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
The host galaxies of the five local, z<0.25, long-duration gamma-ray bursts, each of which had a well-documented associated supernova, are all faint and metal-poor compared to the population of local star-forming galaxies. We quantify this…
The aim of my dissertation is to investigate habitability in extra-Solar Systems. Most of the time, only planets are considered as possible places where extraterrestrial life can emerge and evolve, however, their moons could be inhabited,…