Related papers: Ice Giant Atmospheric Science
Modeling the formation of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune is a long-lasting problem in planetary science. Due to gas-drag, collisional damping, and resonant shepherding, the planetary embryos repel the planetesimals away from their reach…
The geophysics of extrasolar planets is a scientific topic often regarded as standing largely beyond the reach of near-term observations. This reality in no way diminishes the central role of geophysical phenomena in shaping planetary…
Planned astronomical observatories of the 2020s will be capable of obtaining reflected light photometry and spectroscopy of cool extrasolar giant planets. Here we explain that such data are valuable both for understanding the origin and…
UV auroral emissions from giant planets are produced by extra-atmospheric energetic particles interacting with an atmosphere. They have been observed on Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus and should be present on Neptune. Even if the mechanisms are…
Giant planet formation process is still not completely understood. The current most accepted paradigm, the core instability model, explains several observed properties of the solar system's giant planets but, to date, has faced difficulties…
We used {\sl \textup{ab initio}} molecular dynamics simulations to calculate the high-pressure melting temperatures of the three potential core components. The planetary adiabats were obtained by solving the hydrostatic equations in a…
Hot giant exoplanets are very exotic objects with no equivalent in the Solar System that allow us to study the behavior of atmospheres under extreme conditions. Their thermal and chemical day--night dichotomies associated with extreme wind…
The 27 satellites of Uranus are enigmatic, with dark surfaces coated by material that could be rich in organics. Voyager 2 imaged the southern hemispheres of Uranus' five largest 'classical' moons Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and…
Planets of 1-4 times Earth's size on orbits shorter than 100 days exist around 30-50% of all Sun-like stars. In fact, the Solar System is particularly outstanding in its lack of "hot super-Earths" (or "mini-Neptunes"). These planets -- or…
The large number of detected giant exoplanets offers the opportunity to improve our understanding of the formation mechanism, evolution, and interior structure of gas giant planets. The two main models for giant planet formation are core…
Detailed characterization of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere provides the best hope for distinguishing the makeup of its outer layers, and the only hope for understanding the interplay between initial composition, chemistry, dynamics &…
Centaurs populate relatively short-lived and rapidly evolving orbits in the giant-planet region and are believed to be one of the solar system's most complex and diverse populations. Most Centaurs are linked to origins in the dynamically…
The study of extrasolar planets has rapidly expanded to encompass the search for new planets, measurements of sizes and masses, models of planetary interiors, planetary demographics and occurrence frequencies, the characterization of…
I review the major open science questions in exoplanet atmospheres. These are mainly focused in the areas of understanding atmospheric physics, the atmosphere as a window into other realms of planetary physics, and the atmosphere is a…
We are interested in the influence of cloudy atmospheres on the thermal radius evolution of warm exoplanets from an interior modelling perspective. By applying a physically motivated but simple parameterized cloud model, we obtain the…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the last decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods and even wind speeds to be measured.…
Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…
The giant planet atmospheres exhibit alternating prograde (eastward) and retrograde (westward) jets of different speeds and widths, with an equatorial jet that is prograde on Jupiter and Saturn and retrograde on Uranus and Neptune. The jets…
Aptly named, ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune contain significant amounts of water. While this water cannot be present near the cloud tops, it must be abundant in the deep interior. We investigate the likelihood of a liquid water ocean…
We investigate the enrichment patterns of several delivery scenarios of the volatiles to the atmospheres of ice giants, having in mind that the only well constrained determination made remotely, i.e. the carbon abundance measurement,…