Related papers: Topography of (exo)planets
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
Mountain ranges, volcanoes, trenches, and craters are common on rocky bodies throughout the Solar System, and we might we expect the same for rocky exoplanets. With ever larger telescopes under design and a growing need to not just detect…
Topography is the expression of both internal and external processes of a planetary body. Thus hypsometry (the study of topography) is a way to decipher the dynamic of a planet. For that purpose, the statistics of height and slopes may be…
The quest for atmospheric spectral signatures that may witness biological activity in exoplanets is focused on rocky planets. The best targets for future, challenging spectroscopic observations will be selected among potentially habitable…
Astrophysical observations reveal a large diversity of radii and masses of exoplanets. It is important to characterize the interiors of exoplanets to understand planetary diversity and further determine how unique, or not, Earth is.…
In recent years, numerical models that were developed for Earth have been adapted to study exoplanetary climates to understand how the broad range of possible exoplanetary properties affects their climate state. The recent discovery and…
Characterizing the surfaces of rocky exoplanets via the scattered light will be an essential challenge to investigate the existence of life on habitable exoplanets. We present a simple reconstruction method for fractional areas of different…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
Large ground- and space-based telescopes will be able to observe Earth-like planets in the near future. We explore how different planetary surfaces can strongly influence the climate, atmospheric composition, and remotely detectable spectra…
A reasonable basis for future astronomical investigations of exoplanets lies in our best knowledge of the planets and satellites in the Solar System. Solar System bodies exhibit a wide variety of surface environments, even including…
Over 300 extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been detected orbiting nearby stars. We now hope to conduct a census of all planets around nearby stars and to characterize their atmospheres and surfaces with spectroscopy. Rocky planets within…
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
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…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
Finding potential life harboring exo-Earths is one of the aims of exoplanetary science. Detecting signatures of life in exoplanets will likely first be accomplished by determining the bulk composition of the planetary atmosphere via…
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…
The detections of small, rocky exoplanets have surged in recent years and will likely continue to do so. To know whether a rocky exoplanet is habitable, we have to characterise its atmosphere and surface. A promising characterisation method…
Context. The crust composition of rocky exoplanets with a substantial atmosphere can not be observed directly. However, recent developments start to allow the observation and characterisation of their atmospheres. Aims. We aim to establish…