Related papers: Loose Ends for the Exomoon Candidate Host Kepler-1…
The recent announcement of a Neptune-sized exomoon candidate orbiting the Jupiter-sized object Kepler-1625b has forced us to rethink our assumptions regarding both exomoons and their host exoplanets. In this paper I describe calculations of…
An exomoon will produce transit timing variations (TTVs) upon the parent planet and their undersampled nature causes half of such TTVs to manifest within a frequency range of 2 to 4 cycles, irrespective of exomoon demographics. Here, we…
In recent years, technical and theoretical work to detect moons and rings around exoplanets has been attempted. The small mass/size ratios between moons and planets means this is very challenging, having only one exoplanetary system where…
Exomoons may play an important role in determining the habitability of worlds outside of our solar system. They can stabilize conditions, alter the climate by breaking tidal locking with the parent star, drive tidal heating, and perhaps…
An intriguing question in the context of dynamics arises: Could a moon possess a moon itself? Such a configuration does not exist in the Solar System, although this may be possible in theory. Kollmeier et al. (2019) determined the critical…
We present a search for exomoons around the Jupiter-like exoplanet Kepler-167e using a NIRSpec JWST transit. Our 60 hour time series clearly reveals the enormous impact of long-term trends in NIRSpec data, specifically a gradual flux drift…
It is relatively rare for gas giant planets to have resonant or near-resonant companions, but these systems are particularly useful for constraining planet formation and migration models. In this study, we examine Kepler-1624b, a sub-Saturn…
Highly eccentric orbits are one of the major surprises of exoplanets relative to the Solar System and indicate rich and tumultuous dynamical histories. One system of particular interest is Kepler-1656, which hosts a sub-Jovian planet with…
The exomoon candidate Kepler-1708 b-i was recently reported using two transits of Kepler data. Supported by a 1% false-positive probability, the candidate is promising but requires follow-up observations to confirm/reject its validity. In…
We examined which exo-systems contain moons that may be detected in transit. We numerically modeled transit light curves of Earth-like and giant planets that cointain moons with 0.005--0.4 Earth-mass. The orbital parameters were randomly…
Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) can be induced by a range of physical phenomena, including planet-planet interactions, planet-moon interactions, and stellar activity. Recent work has shown that roughly half of moons would induce fast TTVs…
All the giant planets in the solar system host a large number of natural satellites. Moons in extrasolar systems are difficult to detect, but a Neptune-sized exomoon candidate has been recently found around a Jupiter-sized planet in the…
The transit technique is responsible for the majority of exoplanet discoveries to date. Characterizing these planets involves careful modeling of their transit profiles. A common technique involves expressing the transit duration using a…
We present the confirmation of a small, moderately-irradiated (F = 155 +/- 7 Fearth) Neptune with a substantial gas envelope in a P=11.8728787+/-0.0000085-day orbit about a quiet, Sun-like G0V star Kepler-1655. Based on our analysis of the…
The rapid expansion of exoplanet survey missions such as Kepler, TESS, and the upcoming PLATO mission has generated massive light-curve datasets that challenge traditional vetting pipelines. We introduce a hybrid deep-learning framework…
The star Kepler-1625 recently attracted considerable attention when an analysis of the stellar photometric time series from the Kepler mission was interpreted as showing evidence of a large exomoon around the transiting Jupiter-sized planet…
This work shows the dynamical instability that can happen to close-in satellites when planet oblateness is not accounted for in non-coplanar multiplanet systems. Simulations include two secularly interacting Jupiter-mass planets mutually…
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…
If a transiting exoplanet has a moon, that moon could be detected directly from the transit it produces itself, or indirectly via the transit timing variations it produces in its parent planet. There is a range of parameter space where the…
Exomoons are expected to produce potentially detectable transit timing variations (TTVs) upon their parent planet. Unfortunately, distinguishing moon-induced TTVs from other sources, in particular planet-planet interactions, has severely…