Related papers: Uranus and Neptune: Origin, Evolution and Internal…

The origin of Uranus and Neptune remains a challenge for planet formation models. A potential explanation is that the planets formed from a population of a few planetary embryos with masses of a few Earth masses which formed beyond Saturn's…

Probing the interiors of the gas giant planets in our Solar System is not an easy task. It requires a set of accurate measurements combined with theoretical models that are used to infer the planetary composition and its depth dependence.…

Uranus and Neptune are the archetypes of "ice giants", a class of planets that may be among the most common in the Galaxy. They hold the keys to understand the atmospheric dynamics and structure of planets with hydrogen atmospheres inside…

Among exoplanets, the small-size population constitutes the dominant one, with a diversity of properties and compositions ranging from rocky to gas dominated envelope. While a large fraction of them have masses and radii similar to or…

The internal structure of gas giant planets may be more complex than the commonly assumed core-envelope structure with an adiabatic temperature profile. Different primordial internal structures as well as various physical processes can lead…

The Neptune desert is no longer empty. A handful of close-in planets with masses between those of Neptune and Saturn have now been discovered, and their puzzling properties have inspired a number of interesting theories on the formation and…

The origin of Uranus and Neptune has long been challenging to explain, due to the large orbital distances from the Sun. After a planetary embryo has been formed, the main accretion processes are likely pebble, gas and planetesimal…

The core accretion theory of planet formation has at least two fundamental problems explaining the origins of Uranus and Neptune: (1) dynamical times in the trans-Saturnian solar nebula are so long that core growth can take > 15 Myr, and…

Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…

We discuss the interior structure and composition of giant planets, and how this structure changes as these planets cool and contract over time. Here we define giant planets as those that have an observable hydrogen-helium envelope, which…

Despite many similarities, there are significant observed differences between Uranus and Neptune: while Uranus is tilted and has a regular set of satellites, suggesting their accretion from a disk, Neptune's moons are irregular and are…

The brightness of Neptune is often found to be in accordance with an adiabatic interior, while the low luminosity of Uranus challenges this assumption. Here we apply revised equation of state data of hydrogen, helium, and water and compute…

For its beautiful rings, active atmosphere and mysterious magnetic field, Saturn is a fascinating planet. It also holds some of the keys to understanding the formation of our Solar System and the evolution of giant planets in general. While…

The sample of known exoplanets is strongly biased to masses larger than the ones of the giant gaseous planets of the solar system. Recently, the discovery of two extrasolar planets of considerably lower masses around the nearby stars GJ 436…

The intrinsic luminosity of Uranus is a factor of 10 less than that of Neptune, an observation that standard giant planetary evolution models, which assume negligible viscosity, fail to capture. Here we show that more than half of the…

The formation mechanisms of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, and the origin of their elemental and isotopic compositions, have long been debated. The density of solids in the outer protosolar nebula is too low to explain their formation,…

We provide a brief review of many aspects of the planetary physics of hot Jupiters. Our aim is to cover most of the major areas of current study while providing the reader with additional references for more detailed follow-up. We first…

Modeling the formation of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune is a long-lasting problem in planetary science. Due to gas-drag, collisional damping, and resonant shepherding, the planetary embryos repel the planetesimals away from their reach…

We review the current understanding of the upper atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, and explore the upcoming opportunities available to study these exciting planets. The ice giants are the least understood planets in the solar system,…

We present a new framework for constructing agnostic and yet physical models for planetary interiors and apply it to Uranus and Neptune. Unlike previous research that either impose rigid assumptions or rely on simplified empirical profiles,…