Related papers: Can close-in giant exoplanets preserve detectable …

We present an approach that is able to both rapidly assess the dynamical stability of multiple planet systems, and determine whether an exoplanet system would be capable of hosting a dynamically stable Earth-mass companion in its habitable…

The tidal evolution of hot Jupiters may change the efficiency of transit surveys of stellar clusters. The orbital decay that hot Jupiters suffer may result in their destruction, leaving fewer transiting planets in older clusters. We…

The next generation of exoplanet space photometry missions proposed by both NASA and ESA promise to discover small transiting planets around the nearest and brightest main-sequence stars. The physical and rotational properties of these…

It is now accepted that the Solar system's youth was a dynamic and chaotic time. The giant planets migrated significant distances to reach their current locations, and evidence of that migration's influence on the Solar system abounds. That…

Exoplanets are typically thought to form in protoplanetary disks left over from protostellar disk of their newly formed host star. However, additional planetary formation and evolution routes may exist in old evolved binary systems. Here we…

Dozens of habitable zone, approximately earth-sized exoplanets are known today. An emerging frontier of exoplanet studies is identifying which of these habitable zone, small planets are actually habitable (have all necessary conditions for…

We investigate how the evolution of the stellar spin rate affects, and is affected by, planets in close orbits, via star-planet tidal interactions. To do this, we used a standard equilibrium tidal model to compute the orbital evolution of…

Both direct and indirect methods of exoplanet detection rely upon detailed knowledge of the potential host stars. Such stellar characterization allows for accurate extraction of planetary properties, as well as contributing to our overall…

Transitional disks are protoplanetary disks with large and deep central holes in the gas, possibly carved by young planets. Dong, R., & Dawson, R. 2016, ApJ, 825, 7 simulated systems with multiple giant planets that were capable of carving…

Long-term orbital evolution of multi-planet systems under tidal dissipation often converges to a stationary state, known as the tidal fixed point. The fixed point is characterized by a lack of oscillations in the eccentricities and apsidal…

Tidal interactions between moons and planets can have major effects on the orbits, spins, and thermal evolution of the moons. In the Saturn system, tidal dissipation in the planet transfers angular momentum from Saturn to the moons, causing…

The architecture of many exoplanetary systems is different from the solar system, with exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. We can expect interactions between the star and…

One outstanding problem in extrasolar planet studies is why no co-orbital exoplanets have been found, despite numerous searches among the many known planetary systems, many of them in other mean-motion resonances. Here we examine the…

Recent discoveries of strongly misaligned transiting exoplanets pose a challenge to the established planet formation theory which assumes planetary systems to form and evolve in isolation. However, the fact that the majority of stars…

One of the unique aspects of Earth is that it has a fractionally large Moon, which is thought to have formed from a Moon-forming disk generated by a giant impact. The Moon stabilizes the Earth's spin axis at least by several degrees and…

It is debated whether close-in giant planets can form in-situ and if not, which mechanisms are responsible for their migration. One of the observable tests for migration theories is the current value of the angle between the stellar…

According to current theories, tidal interactions between a disk and an embedded planet may lead to the rapid migration of the protoplanet on a timescale shorter than the disk lifetime or estimated planetary formation timescales. Therefore,…

Since planet occurrence and primordial atmospheric retention probability increase with period, the occurrence-weighted median planets discovered by transit surveys may bear little resemblance to the low-occurrence, short-period planets…

Previous studies using Kepler data suggest that planets orbiting the same star tend to have similar sizes. However, due to the faintness of the stars, only a few of the planets were also detected with radial velocity follow-ups, and…

The Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets and revolutionized our understanding of their population. This large, homogeneous catalog of discoveries has enabled rigorous studies of the occurrence rate of exoplanets and…