Related papers: Dynamical and biological panspermia constraints wi…

Exoplanetary science is on the verge of an unprecedented revolution. The thousands of exoplanets discovered over the past decade have most recently been supplemented by discoveries of potentially habitable planets around nearby low-mass…

It is suggested that the distribution of orbital eccentricities for extrasolar planets is well-described by the Beta distribution. Several properties of the Beta distribution make it a powerful tool for this purpose. For example, the Beta…

Stars do not form in isolation but together with other stars, and often in a clustered environment. Depending on the initial conditions in these environments, such as initial density and substructure, the distances of encounters between…

What kind of environment may exist on terrestrial planets around other stars? In spite of the lack of direct observations, it may not be premature to speculate on exoplanetary climates, for instance to optimize future telescopic…

Terrestrial planetary systems may exist around nearby stars as the Earth-sized counterparts to the many giant planets already discovered within the solar neighborhood. In this chapter we first discuss the numerous techniques which have been…

The asteroid belt is a unique source of information on some of the most important questions facing solar system science. These questions include the sizes, numbers, types and orbital distributions of the planetesimals that formed the…

Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…

The diversity of dynamical conditions among exoplanets is now well established. Yet, the relevance of orbital dynamical timescales to biological evolutionary timescales is poorly understood. Given that even minor orbital changes may place…

Can information theory provide insights into whether exoplanets are habitable? Here we apply information theory to a range of simulated exoplanet transmission spectra as a diagnostic tool to search for potential signatures of life on…

For centuries, our knowledge of planetary systems and ideas about planet formation were based on a single example, our solar system. During the last thirteen years, the discovery of ~170 planetary systems has ushered in a new era for…

Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital…

Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…

The search for life has two goals essentially: looking for planets with Earth-like conditions (Earth similarity) and looking for the possibility of life in some form (habitability). Determining habitability from exoplanet data requires that…

The search for life in the Solar System hinges on data from planetary missions. Detecting biosignatures based on molecular identity, isotopic composition, or chiral excess requires measurements that current and planned missions can only…

Given the tendency of planets to form in multiples, and the observational evidence in support of the existence of potential planet-hosting stars in binaries or clusters, it is expected that extrasolar terrestrial planes are more likely to…

The exoplanet detection is the most exciting and challenging field of astronomy. The discovery of many exoplanets has revolutionized our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems and has showed new ways to search for…

We apply a mathematical model for photosynthesis to quantitatively assess the habitability of a hypothetical planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, inside the so called habitability zone. Results suggest significant viability for primary…

Exoplanet characterization is one of the main foci of current exoplanetary science. For super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, we mostly rely on mass and radius measurements, which allow to derive the body's mean density and give a rough estimate…

This paper explores the stability of an Earth-like planet orbiting a solar-mass star in the presence of a stellar companion using ~ 400,000 numerical integrations. Given the chaotic nature of the systems being considered, we perform a…

Understanding how giant and terrestrial planets form and evolve, what is their internal structure and that of their atmosphere, represents one of the major challenges of modern astronomy, which is directly connected to the ultimate search…