Related papers: Energy Budgets for Terrestrial Extrasolar Planets
We perform three-dimensional numerical simulations of stellar winds of early-M dwarf stars. Our simulations incorporate observationally reconstructed large-scale surface magnetic maps, suggesting that the complexity of the magnetic field…
The climates of terrestrial planets are largely determined by the composition of their atmospheres and spectral types of their host stars. Previous studies suggest a wide range of carbon species abundances (CO\textsubscript{2}, CO, and…
A radiative-convective climate model is used to calculate stratospheric temperatures and water vapor concentrations for ozone-free atmospheres warmer than that of modern Earth. Cold, dry stratospheres are predicted at low surface…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
All water-covered rocky planets in the inner habitable zones of solar-type stars will inevitably experience a catastrophic runaway climate due to increasing stellar luminosity and limits to outgoing infrared radiation from wet greenhouse…
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…
A planetary atmosphere is the outer gas layer of a planet. Besides its scientific significance among the first and most accessible planetary layers observed from space, it is closely connected with planetary formation and evolution, surface…
Rotation in planetary atmospheres plays an important role in regulating atmospheric and oceanic heat flow, cloud formation and precipitation. Using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) three dimension General Circulation Model…
With the first observations of debris disks as well as proposed planets around white dwarfs, the question of how rocky planets around such stellar remnants can be characterized and probed for signs of life becomes tangible. White dwarfs are…
Surface liquid water is essential for standard planetary habitability. Calculations of atmospheric circulation on tidally locked planets around M stars suggest that this peculiar orbital configuration lends itself to the trapping of large…
Cycling of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and interior of rocky planets can stabilize global climate and enable planetary surface temperatures above freezing over geologic time. However, variations in global carbon budget and…
Hydrodynamic escape can strip the envelopes of close-in exoplanets, but most observations of atmospheric mass loss to date have been confined to planets orbiting K and M dwarfs. A growing body of detections of atmospheric escape from…
We use a one-dimensional (1-D) cloud-free climate model to estimate habitable zone (HZ) boundaries for terrestrial planets of masses 0.1 M$_{E}$ and 5 M$_{E}$ around circumbinary stars of various spectral type combinations. Specifically, we…
The atmospheres of close-in planets are strongly influenced by mass loss driven by the high-energy (X-ray and extreme ultraviolet, EUV) irradiation of the host star, particularly during the early stages of evolution. We recently developed a…
Aquatic photosynthesis plays a major role in carbon fixation and O$_2$ production on Earth. In this Letter, we analyze the prospects for oxygenic photosynthesis in aquatic environments on modern Earth-analogs around F-, G-, K- and M-type…
Arid terrestrial exoplanets are potentially abundant and are thus interesting targets in the search for life. In particular, M-dwarf planets such as those in the TRAPPIST-1 system may possess limited surface water, whereas early solar…
The photoionization-driven evaporation of planetary atmospheres has emerged as a potentially fundamental process for planets on short period orbits. While 1-D studies have proven the effectiveness of stellar fluxes at altering the…
Trends in the planet population with host star mass provide an avenue to constrain planet formation theories. We derive the planet radius distribution function for Kepler stars of different spectral types, sampling a range in host star…
Recent results showed that the magnetic field of M-dwarf (dM) stars, currently the main targets in searches for terrestrial planets, is very different from the solar one, both in topology as well as in intensity. In particular, the…
The proportions of oxygen, carbon and major rock-forming elements (e.g. Mg, Fe, Si) determine a planet's dominant mineralogy. Variation in a planet's mineralogy subsequently affects planetary mantle dynamics as well as any deep water or…