Related papers: Decrease in hysteresis of planetary climate for pl…
The TRAPPIST-1 system has 7 known terrestrial planets arranged compactly in a mean motion resonant chain around an ultra-cool central star, some within the estimated habitable zone. Given their short orbital periods of just a few days, it…
Planets with masses between 0.1 - 10 M_earth are believed to host dense atmospheres. These atmospheres can play an important role on the planet's spin evolution, since thermal atmospheric tides, driven by the host star, may counterbalance…
Planetary obliquity is a first order control on planetary climate and seasonal contrast, which has a number of cascading consequences for life. How moderately high obliquity (obliquities greater than Earth's current obliquity up to…
Short period exoplanets on circular orbits are thought to be tidally locked into synchronous rotation. If tidally locked, these planets must possess permanent day- and nightsides, with extreme irradiation on the dayside and none on the…
Terrestrial planets in temperate orbits around very low mass stars are likely to have evolved in a very different way than solar system planets, and in particular Earth. However, because these are the first planets that are and will be…
We investigate the impact of nightside cloud formation on the observable night-day contrast of tidally-locked terrestrial planet atmospheres. We demonstrate that, in the case where the planetary dayside is only 10s of Kelvin hotter than the…
Semidiurnal atmospheric thermal tides are important for terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone of their host stars. With solid tides, they torque these planets, thus contributing to determine their rotation states as well as their…
Planet--Planet scattering is an efficient and robust dynamical mechanism for producing eccentric exoplanets. Coupled to tidal interactions with the central star, it can also explain close--in giant planets on circularized and potentially…
Various climate states at high obliquity are realized for a range of stellar irradiance using a dynamical atmosphere-ocean-sea ice climate model in an Aquaplanet configuration. Three stable climate states are obtained that differ in the…
The Kepler Space telescope has uncovered around thirteen circumbinary planets (CBPs) that orbit a pair of stars and experience two sources of stellar flux. We characterize the top-of-atmosphere flux and surface temperature evolution in…
Solar activity is a process driven by many independent but interconnected phenomena. Although the 11-year cycle is the result of operation of the dynamo mechanism, the cause of longer secular variations is not clear. In search of such a…
A large sample of planet-planet scattering events for three planet systems with different orbital separations and masses is analyzed with a multiple regression model. The dependence of the time for the onset of instability on the masses of…
The evolution of planetary systems around white dwarfs is crucial to understanding the presence of planetary material in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. These systems uniquely probe exoplanetary compositions. Periodic signals in the…
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…
Although tidally-locked habitable planets orbiting nearby M-dwarf stars are among the best astronomical targets to search for extrasolar life, they may also be deficient in volatiles and water. Climate models for this class of planets show…
Stellar activity has a particularly strong influence on planets at small orbital distances, such as close-in exoplanets. For such planets, we present two extreme cases of stellar variability, namely stellar coronal mass ejections and…
The energy balance and climate of planets can be affected by the reflective properties of their land, ocean, and frozen surfaces. Here we investigate the effect of host star spectral energy distribution (SED) on the albedo of these surfaces…
Several different factors influence the seasonal cycle of a planet. This study uses a general circulation model and an energy balance model (EBM) to assess the parameters that govern the seasonal cycle. We define two metrics to describe the…
We investigate the obliquity and spin period of Earth-Moon like systems after 4.5 Gyr of tidal evolution with various satellite masses and initial planetary obliquity and discuss their relations to the habitability of the planet. We find…
In this work, we study the presence of hurricanes on exoplanets. Tidally locked terrestrial planets around M dwarfs are the main targets of space missions looking to discover habitable exoplanets. The question of whether hurricanes can form…