Related papers: Lightning in other planets
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying…
At the dawn of the first discovery of exoplanets orbiting sun-like stars in the mid-1990s, few believed that observations of exoplanet atmospheres would ever be possible. After the 2002 Hubble Space Telescope detection of a transiting…
Layer clouds are abundant in the Earth's atmosphere. Such clouds do not become sufficiently strongly charged to generate lightning, but they show weak charging along the upper and lower cloud boundaries where there is a conductivity…
Stellar flares, winds and coronal mass ejections form the space weather. They are signatures of the magnetic activity of cool stars and, since activity varies with age, mass and rotation, the space weather that extra-solar planets…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
The phase or orbital light curves of extrasolar terrestrial planets in reflected or emitted light will contain information about their atmospheres and surfaces complementary to data obtained by other techniques such as spectrosopy. We show…
The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding…
Thousands of exoplanets orbit nearby stars, showcasing a remarkable diversity in mass, size, and orbits. With the James Webb Space Telescope now operational, we are observing exoplanet atmospheres and aiming to reach down to small,…
In the superconducting medium the circular current supported by its own magnetic field can exist giving rise to the possible underlying mechanism for the ball lightning.
Thunderstorms and the lightning that they produce are inherently interesting phenomena that have intrigued scientists and mankind in general for many years. The study of thunderstorms has rapidly advanced during the past century and many…
Exoplanetary science continues to excite and surprise with its rich diversity. We discuss here some key aspects potentially influencing the range of exoplanetary terrestrial-type atmospheres which could exist in nature. We are motivated by…
Of the 342 planets discovered so far orbiting other stars, 58 "transit" the stellar disk, meaning that they can be detected by a periodic decrease in the starlight flux. The light from the star passes through the atmosphere of the planet,…
It is well known that stars orbited by giant planets have higher abundances of heavy elements when compared with average field dwarfs. A number of studies have also addressed the possibility that light element abundances are different in…
Research work in the area of the Global Electric Circuit (GEC) has rapidly expanded in recent years mainly through observations of lightning from satellites and ground-based networks and observations of optical emissions between cloud and…
For centuries, our knowledge of planetary systems and ideas about planet formation were based on a single example, our solar system. During the last thirteen years, the discovery of ~170 planetary systems has ushered in a new era for…
Orbital variation in reflected starlight from exoplanets could eventually be used to detect surface oceans. Exoplanets with rough surfaces, or dominated by atmospheric Rayleigh scattering, should reach peak brightness in full phase, orbital…
Astronomical surveys have identified numerous exoplanets with bulk compositions that are unlike the planets of the Solar System, including rocky super-Earths and gas-enveloped sub-Neptunes. Observing the atmospheres of these objects…
Lightning has been suggested to play a role in triggering the occurrence of bio-ready chemical species. Future missions (PLATO, ARIEL, HWO, LIFE) and ground-based ELTs will investigate the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets. We…
Rings around giant exoplanets (hereafter 'exorings') are still a missing planetary phenomenon among the vast number of discovered planets. Despite the fact there exist a large number of methods for identifying and characterizing these…
Detailed observations of the solar system planets reveal a wide variety of local atmospheric conditions. Astronomical observations have revealed a variety of extrasolar planets none of which resembles any of the solar system planets in…