Related papers: Geoscience for understanding habitability in the s…
Earth has a unique surface character among Solar System worlds. Not only does it harbor liquid water, but also large continents. An exoplanet with a similar appearance would remind us of home, but it is not obvious whether such a planet is…
Motivated by the possibility that different versions of the laws of physics could be realized within other universes, this paper delineates the galactic parameters that allow for habitable planets and revisits constraints on the amplitude…
The diversity of planetary systems that have been discovered are revealing the plethora of possible architectures, providing insights into planet formation and evolution. They also increase our understanding of system parameters that may…
Rocky planets in our Solar System, namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Moon, which is generally added to this group due to its geological complexity, possess a solid surface and share a common structure divided into major layers,…
We explore the impact of obliquity variations on planetary habitability in hypothetical systems with high mutual inclination. We show that large amplitude, high frequency obliquity oscillations on Earth-like exoplanets can suppress the…
Life has had a dramatic impact on the composition of Earth's atmosphere over time, which suggests that statistical studies of other inhabited planets' atmospheres could reveal how they co-evolve with life. While many evolutionary pathways…
This chapter concerns the long-term dynamical evolution of planetary systems from both theoretical and observational perspectives. We begin by discussing the planet-planet interactions that take place within our own Solar System. We then…
Many habitable zone exoplanets are expected to form with water mass fractions higher than that of the Earth. For rocky exoplanets with 10-1000x Earth's H2O but without H2, we model the multi-Gyr evolution of ocean temperature and chemistry,…
The concept of the Circumstellar Habitable Zone has served the scientific community well for some decades. It slips easily off the tongue, and it would be hard to replace. Recently, however, several workers have postulated types of…
With thousands of exoplanets now identified, the characterization of habitable planets and the potential identification of inhabited ones is a major challenge for the coming decades. We review the current working definition of habitable…
Mars is the Solar System's canonical small, rocky planet that transitioned from early geologic activity and surface liquid water to a cold and arid planet with a thin, cold, CO$_2$-dominated atmosphere. The evolution of Mars, in the context…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
After Earth's origin, our host star, the Sun, was shining 20 to 25 percent less brightly than today. Without greenhouse-like conditions to warm the atmosphere, our early planet would have been an ice ball and life may never have evolved.…
We investigate the prospects for the past or current existence of habitable conditions deep underneath the surfaces of the Moon and Mars as well as generic bound and free-floating extrasolar rocky objects. We construct a simple model that…
Context: The long-term carbonate-silicate cycle plays an important role in the evolution of Earth's climate and, therefore, may also be an important mechanism in the evolution of the climates of Earth-like exoplanets. Aims: We investigate…
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,…
The coupled interior-atmosphere system of terrestrial exoplanets remains poorly understood. Exoplanets show a wide variety of sizes, densities, surface temperatures, and interior structures, with important knock-on effects for this coupled…
The characteristics of irradiated solar system planetary atmospheres have been studied for decades, consequently modern planetary science benefits from an exhaustive body of ground- and space-based data. The study of extrasolar planetary…
The Habitable Zone for a given star describes the range of circumstellar distances from the star within which a planet could have liquid water on its surface, which depends upon the stellar properties. Here we describe the development of…
The search for exoplanets has encompassed a broad range of stellar environments, from single stars in the solar neighborhood to multiple stars and various open clusters. The stellar environment has a profound effect on planet formation and…