Related papers: Terrestrial Planets Comparative Climatology (TPCC)…
The purpose of this document is to discuss the scientific case of a space mission to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune and their satellite systems and its relevance to advance our understanding of the ancient past of the Solar System and,…
The principal goal of the NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and ESA Darwin mission concepts is to directly detect and characterize extrasolar terrestrial (Earth-sized) planets. This first generation of instruments is expected to provide…
Exoplanetary science has reached a historic moment. The James Webb Space Telescope will be capable of probing the atmospheres of rocky planets, and perhaps even search for biologically produced gases. However this is contingent on…
Terrestrial planets in the Habitable Zone of Sun-like stars are priority targets for detection and observation by the next generation of space telescopes. Earth's long-term habitability may have been tied to the geological carbon cycle, a…
The scientific output of the proposed EChO mission (in terms of spectroscopic characterization of the atmospheres of transiting extrasolar planets) will be maximized by a careful selection of targets and by a detailed characterization of…
The transit method, during which a planet's presence is inferred by measuring the reduction in flux as it passes in front of its parent star, is a highly successful exoplanet detection and characterization technique. During transit, the…
This is a white paper submitted to the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey. The deep atmosphere of Venus is largely unexplored and yet may harbor clues to the evolutionary pathways for a major silicate planet with implications…
Previous generation of instruments have the opportunity to discover thousands of extra-solar planets and more will come with the current and future planet-search missions. In order to go one step further in the characterization of…
In the coming decades, research in extrasolar planets aims to advance two goals: 1) detecting and characterizing low-mass planets increasingly similar to the Earth, and 2) improving our understanding of planet formation. We present a new…
Mars is the Solar System's canonical small, rocky planet that transitioned from early geologic activity and surface liquid water to a cold and arid planet with a thin, cold, CO$_2$-dominated atmosphere. The evolution of Mars, in the context…
The multi-scale transport and exchange processes in the atmosphere over mountains -- programme and experiment (TEAMx) wants to advance the understanding of transport and exchange processes over mountainous terrain as well as to collect…
The Solar Close Observations and Proximity Experiments (SCOPE) mission will send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere at a low altitude of just 5 R_sun from the solar center. It aims to elucidate the mechanisms behind solar eruptions and…
The past twenty years have revealed the diversity of planets that exist in the Universe. It turned out that most of exoplanets are different from the planets of our Solar System and thus, everything about them needs to be explored. Thanks…
The global climate crisis poses new risks to humanity, and with them, new challenges to the practices of professional astronomy. Avoiding the more catastrophic consequences of global warming by more than 1.5 degrees requires an immediate…
Global climate change is one of main concern of modern society. To estimate this change usually one estimates the global mean temperature. Measuring and calculating the Earth's average temperature are multi-steps complex processes which…
This activity has been developed as a resource for the "EU Space Awareness" educational programme. As part of the suite "Our Fragile Planet" together with the "Climate Box" it addresses aspects of weather phenomena, the Earth's climate and…
In this white paper, we present a cross-section of important scientific questions that remain partially or completely unanswered, ranging from Titan exosphere to the deep interior, and we detail which instrumentation and mission scenarios…
Many papers and monographs were written about the modeling the Earth climate and its variability. However there is still an obvious need for a module that presents the fundamentals of climate modeling to students at the undergraduate level.…
The Kepler era of exoplanetary discovery has presented the Astronomical community with a cornucopia of planetary systems very different from the one which we inhabit. It has long been known that Jupiter plays a major role in the orbital…
A 'planetary park' system has been suggested as a way for Mars to 'preserve' land for a multitude of purposes. These parks would represent a diverse portion of martian terrain and would be regulated to minimize human contamination and…