Related papers: Climate Modeling of a Potential ExoVenus

With the rapid developments in the exoplanet field, more and more terrestrial exoplanets are being detected. Characterising their atmospheres using transit observations will become a key datum in the quest for detecting an Earth-like…

For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…

Venus and Earth are similar in bulk properties yet followed dramatically different climatic trajectories. Reconstructing Venus's climate evolution requires understanding how rotation, obliquity, eccentricity, and solar luminosity shaped…

On 5-6 June 2012, Venus will be transiting the Sun for the last time before 2117. This event is an unique opportunity to assess the feasibility of the atmospheric characterisation of Earth-size exoplanets near the habitable zone with the…

We present the discovery of a super-earth-sized planet in or near the habitable zone of a sun-like star. The host is Kepler-69, a 13.7 mag G4V-type star. We detect two periodic sets of transit signals in the three-year flux time series of…

We have investigated the possible evolutional history of the water ocean on Venus, adopting the one dimensional radiative-convective model,including the parameters as albedo and relative humidity. Under this model, it has the possibility…

The atmospheric composition of transiting exoplanets can be characterized during transit by spectroscopy. For the transit of an Earth twin, models predict that biogenic $O_2$ and $O_3$ should be detectable, as well as water vapour, a…

Population studies of Kepler's multi-planet systems have revealed a surprising degree of structure in their underlying architectures. Information from a detected transiting planet can be combined with a population model to make predictions…

The inner edge of the classical habitable zone is often defined by the critical flux needed to trigger the runaway greenhouse instability. This 1D notion of a critical flux, however, may not be so relevant for inhomogeneously irradiated…

The photoionization-driven evaporation of planetary atmospheres has emerged as a potentially fundamental process for planets on short period orbits. While 1-D studies have proven the effectiveness of stellar fluxes at altering the…

The Venusian atmosphere is in a state of superrotation where prevailing westward winds move much faster than the planet's rotation. Venus is covered with thick clouds that extend from about 45 to 70 km altitude, but thermal radiation…

Kepler-22b is the first transiting planet to have been detected in the habitable-zone of its host star. At 2.4 Earth radii, Kepler-22b is too large to be considered an Earth-analog, but should the planet host a moon large enough to maintain…

Detecting heavy atoms in the inflated atmospheres of giant exoplanets that orbit close to their parent stars is a key factor for understanding their bulk composition, and the processes that drive their expansion and interaction with the…

Among the many recommendations of the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020, we found that a priority area of research is to pave the pathways towards finding and characterizing habitable worlds. In this context, we aim to…

Terrestrial planets in the Habitable Zone of Sun-like stars are priority targets for detection and observation by the next generation of space telescopes. Earth's long-term habitability may have been tied to the geological carbon cycle, a…

An intriguing pattern among exoplanets is the lack of detected planets between approximately $1.5$ R$_\oplus$ and $2.0$ R$_\oplus$. One proposed explanation for this "radius gap" is the photoevaporation of planetary atmospheres, a theory…

This review presents an insight into our current knowledge of the atmospheres of the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the satellite Titan, and those of exoplanets. It deals with the thermal structure, aerosol…

Climate transitions on exoplanets offer valuable insights into the atmospheric processes governing planetary habitability. Previous pure-steam atmospheric models show a thermal limit in outgoing long-wave radiation, which has been used to…

Venus is known for its extreme surface temperature and its sulfuric acid clouds. But the cloud layers on Venus have similar temperature and pressure conditions to those on the surface of Earth and are conjectured to be a possible habitat…

Exoplanets that orbit close to their host stars are much more highly irradiated than their Solar System counterparts. Understanding the thermal structures and appearances of these planets requires investigating how their atmospheres respond…