Related papers: Photosynthesis on Exoplanets and Exomoons from Ref…
Oxygen is a promising exoplanet biosignature due to the evolutionary advantage conferred by harnessing starlight for photosynthesis, and the apparent low likelihood of maintaining oxygen-rich atmospheres without life. Hypothetical scenarios…
Compared to the giant planets in the solar system, exoplanets have many remarkable properties such as the prevalence of giant planets on eccentric orbits and the presence of hot Jupiters. Planet-planet scattering (PPS) between giant planets…
The satellites of extrasolar planets (exomoons) have been recently proposed as astrobiological targets. Since giant planets in the habitable zone are thought to have migrated there, it is possible that they may have captured a former…
The aim of my dissertation is to investigate habitability in extra-Solar Systems. Most of the time, only planets are considered as possible places where extraterrestrial life can emerge and evolve, however, their moons could be inhabited,…
The search for life outside of the Solar System should not be restricted to exclusively planetary bodies; large moons of extrasolar planets may also be common habitable environments throughout the Galaxy. Extrasolar moons, or exomoons, may…
The habitable zone for exomoons with Earth-like properties is a non-trivial manifold, compared to that of Earth-like exoplanets. The presence of tidal heating, eclipses and planetary illumination in the exomoon energy budget combine to…
Exoplanet habitability remains a challenging field due to the large distances separating Earth from other stars. Using insights from biology and astrophysics, we studied the habitability of M-dwarf exoplanets by modeling their surface…
The habitability of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs is a key topic in the search for extraterrestrial life. The climates of these planets differ significantly from the Earth's due to their likely tidal locking, resulting in a…
One of the most fundamental questions in exoplanetology is to determine whether a given planet is habitable. We estimate the relative likelihood of a planet's propensity towards habitability by considering key physical characteristics such…
Context: The principle definition of habitability for exoplanets is whether they can sustain liquid water on their surfaces, i.e. that they orbit within the habitable zone. However, the planet's magnetosphere should also be considered,…
A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
Free-floating planets (FFPs) can result from dynamical scattering processes happening in the first few million years of a planetary system's life. Several models predict the possibility, for these isolated planetary-mass objects, to retain…
Reflected light photometry of terrestrial exoplanets could reveal the presence of oceans and continents, hence placing direct constraints on the current and long-term habitability of these worlds. Inferring the albedo map of a planet from…
At optical wavelengths, Titan's brightness for large Sun-Titan-observer phase angles significantly exceeds its dayside brightness. The brightening that occurs near back-illumination is due to moderately large haze particles in the moon's…
Occultation light curves of exomoons may give information on their albedo and hence indicate the presence of ice cover on the surface. Icy moons might have subsurface oceans thus these may potentially be habitable. The objective of our…
Until now, there is no confirmed moon beyond our solar system (exomoon). Exomoons offer us new possibly habitable places which might also be outside the classical habitable zone. But until now, the search for exomoons needs much…
In this paper we investigate the detectability of a habitable-zone exomoon around various configurations of exoplanetary systems with the Kepler Mission or photometry of approximately equal quality. We calculate both the predicted transit…
Confirmation of the first exomoon remains elusive. Although several exomoon candidates exist around single stars, there are currently no candidates around circumbinary planets (CBPs). Most circumbinary planets are thought to form far from…
We formulated tidal decay lifetimes for hypothetical moons orbiting extrasolar planets with both lunar and stellar tides. Previous work neglected the effect of lunar tides on planet rotation, and are therefore applicable only to systems in…
The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…