Related papers: How Special Is the Solar System?
One of the promising methods to search for life on extra-solar planets (exoplanets) is to detect life's signatures in their atmospheres. Spectra of exoplanet atmospheres at the modest resolution needed to search for oxygen, carbon dioxide,…
This chapter of the book Planetary Ring Systems addresses the origin of planetary rings, one of the least understood processes related to planet formation and evolution. Whereas rings seem ubiquitous around giant planets, their great…
Approximately two-thirds of the Earth, the only known inhabited planet, is covered in ocean. Why not 0.01% or 99.99%? It has been previously suggested that this may represent a certain degree of fine-tuning, and thus perhaps observers are…
We discuss the current knowledge of the Solar system, focusing on bodies in the outer regions, on the information they provide concerning Solar system formation, and on the possible relationships that may exist between our system and the…
In this contribution, I briefly review the long-term evolution of the solar wind (its mass-loss rate), including the evolution of observed properties that are intimately linked to the solar wind (rotation, magnetism and activity). I also…
After Earth's origin, our host star, the Sun, was shining 20 to 25 percent less brightly than today. Without greenhouse-like conditions to warm the atmosphere, our early planet would have been an ice ball and life may never have evolved.…
Since the formulation of the problem by Newton, and during three centuries, astronomers and mathematicians have sought to demonstrate the stability of the Solar System. Thanks to the numerical experiments of the last two decades, we know…
The known extrasolar multiple-planet systems share a surprising dynamical attribute: they cluster just beyond the Hill stability boundary. Here we show that the planet-planet scattering model, which naturally explains the observed exoplanet…
We develop a semi-analytical model for computing planetary system formation with the aim of explaining the observed diversity of planetary systems architectures and relate this primordial diversity with the initial properties of the disc…
Collisions are one of the key processes shaping planetary systems. Asteroid families are outcomes of such collisions still identifiable across our solar system. The families provide a unique view of catastrophic disruption phenomena and…
Habitability is usually defined as the requirement for a terrestrial planet's atmosphere to sustain liquid water. This definition can be complemented by the dynamical requirement that other planets in the system do not gravitationally…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
The architecture of exoplanetary systems is often different from the solar system, with some exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. In analogy to interactions between stars in…
The notion of a Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), or regions of the Milky Way galaxy that preferentially maintain the conditions to sustain complex life, has recently gained attention due to the detection of numerous exoplanets and advances…
The closest potentially habitable worlds outside our Solar system orbit a different kind of star than our Sun: smaller red dwarf stars. Such stars can flare frequently, bombarding their planets with biologically damaging high-energy UV…
Recently acquired evidence shows that extrasolar asteroids exhibit over a factor of 100 variation in the iron to aluminum abundance ratio. This large range likely is a consequence of igneous differentiation that resulted from heating…
At present, because of observational selection effects, we know of no exoplanetary systems with any planetary masses close to that of the Earth. We have therefore used computer models to see whether such planets could be dynamically stable…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
A habitable exoplanet is a world that can maintain stable liquid water on its surface. Techniques and approaches to characterizing such worlds are essential, as performing a census of Earth-like planets that may or may not have life will…
Astrophysical research into exoplanets has delivered thousands of confirmed planets orbiting distant stars. These planets span a wide ranges of size and composition, with diversity also being the hallmark of system configurations, the great…