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Ice-rich planets are formed exterior to the water ice-line and thus are expected to contain a substantial amount of ices. The high ice content leads to unique conditions in the interior, under which the structure of a planet is affected by…
Uranus provides a unique laboratory to test our understanding of planetary atmospheres under extreme conditions. Multi-spectral observations from Voyager, ground-based observatories, and space telescopes have revealed a delicately banded…
Heliophysics is the field that "studies the nature of the Sun, and how it influences the very nature of space - and, in turn, the atmospheres of planetary bodies and the technology that exists there." However, NASA's Heliophysics Division…
Advancements in our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres, from massive gas giants down to rocky worlds, depend on the constructive challenges between observations and models. We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in…
Current protoplanetary dust coagulation theory does not predict dry silicate planetesimals, in tension with the Earth. While remedies to this predicament have been proposed, they have generally failed numerical studies, or are in tension…
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…
Hot Jupiters (HJs) are massive gaseous planets orbiting close to their host stars. Due to their physical characteristics and proximity to the central star, HJs are the natural laboratories to study the process of star-planet interaction…
Gas giant planets are differentially rotating magnetic objects that have strong and complex interactions with their environment. In our Solar system, they interact with their numerous moons while exoplanets with very short orbital periods…
A primary goal of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres is to constrain planetary bulk properties, such as their metallicity, C/O ratio, and intrinsic heat. However, there are significant uncertainties in many aspects of atmospheric physics,…
Neutron stars and supernovae provide cosmic laboratories of highly compressed matter at supra nuclear saturation density which is beyond the reach of terrestrial experiments. The properties of dense matter is extracted by combining the…
Small planets ($\sim$1--3.9 $\Rearth$) constitute more than half of the inventory of the 4000-plus exoplanets discovered so far. Smaller planets are sufficiently dense to be rocky, but those with radii larger than $\sim$1.6 $\Rearth$ are…
Phase I of hydrogen has several peculiarities. Despite having a close-packed crystal structure, it is less dense than either the low temperature Phase II or the liquid phase. At high pressure, it transforms into either phase III or IV,…
Many evolutionary models of giant exoplanets still rely on simplifying assumptions that are no longer adequate given detailed constraints from Jupiter, Saturn, and modern exoplanet observations. Here, we identify the key physical…
Most water in the universe may be superionic, and its thermodynamic and transport properties are crucial for planetary science but difficult to probe experimentally or theoretically. We use machine learning and free energy methods to…
The unknown state of matter at ultra-high density, large proton/neutron number asymmetry, and low temperature is a major long-standing problem in modern physics. Neutron stars provide the only known setting in the Universe where matter in…
We present a 3D fully selfconsistent multi-fluid hydrodynamic aeronomy model to study the structure of a hydrogen dominated expanding upper atmosphere around the hot Jupiter HD 209458b and the warm Neptune GJ 436b. In comparison to previous…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
This chapter reviews the current state of observational and theoretical efforts in the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres, with a focus on developments enabled through the Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR)…
We present a novel, model-independent framework for studying the architecture of an exoplanetary system at the system level. This framework allows us to characterise, quantify, and classify the architecture of an individual planetary…
Although current sensitivity limits are such that true Solar System analogs remain challenging to detect, numerous planetary systems have been discovered that are very different from our own Solar System. The majority of systems harbor a…