Related papers: Exoplanet Clouds
With the increasing number of directly imaged giant exoplanets the current atmosphere models are often not capable of fully explaining the spectra and luminosity of the sources. A particularly challenging component of the atmosphere models…
Low-mass planets have an extraordinarily diverse range of bulk compositions, from primarily rocky worlds to those with deep gaseous atmospheres. As techniques for measuring the masses of exoplanets are advancing the field towards the…
Extrasolar planet host stars have been found to be enriched in key planet-building elements. These enrichments have the potential to drastically alter the composition of material available for terrestrial planet formation. Here we report on…
In protoplanetary disks, small mm-cm-sized pebbles drift inwards which can aid planetary growth and influence the chemical composition of their natal disks. Gaps in protoplanetary disks can hinder the effective inward transport of pebbles…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
Solar and extrasolar planets are the subject of numerous studies aiming to determine their chemical composition and internal structure. In the case of extrasolar planets, the composition is important as it partly governs their potential…
Jupiter and Saturn have extended, nearly toroidal atmospheres composed of material ejected from their moons or rings. Here we suggest that similar atmospheres must exist around giant extrasolar planets and might be observable in a transit…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding…
Extrasolar planetary systems range from hot Jupiters out to icy comet belts more distant than Pluto. We explain this diversity in a model where the mass of solids in the primordial circumstellar disk dictates the outcome. The star retains…
The study of the composition of brown dwarf atmospheres helped to understand their formation and evolution. Similarly, the study of exoplanet atmospheres is expected to constrain their formation and evolutionary states. We use results from…
Space weather refers to conditions on the Sun, in the interplanetary space and in the Earth space environment that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and can endanger human…
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…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be at infrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short-period exoplanets pose a severe puzzle to theories of planet formation and orbital evolution. By far most of the planets known beyond the…
The geophysics of extrasolar planets is a scientific topic often regarded as standing largely beyond the reach of near-term observations. This reality in no way diminishes the central role of geophysical phenomena in shaping planetary…
Potentially habitable exoplanets are targets of great interest for the James Webb Space Telescope and upcoming mission concepts such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Clouds strongly affect climate and habitability, but predicting their…
Within the next few years, several instruments aiming at imaging extrasolar planets will see first light. In parallel, low mass planets are being searched around red dwarfs which offer more favorable conditions, both for radial velocity…
In addition to planets and other small bodies, stellar systems will likely also host exozodiacal dust, or exozodi. This warm dust primarily resides in or near the habitable zone of a star, and scatters stellar light in visible to NIR…
We model the formation of silicate atmospheres on hot volatile-free super-Earths. Our calculations assume that all volatile elements such as H, C, N, S, and Cl have been lost from the planet. We find that the atmospheres are composed…