Related papers: Ice Giant Atmospheric Science
Some of the major discoveries of the recent Cassini-Huygens mission have put Titan and Enceladus firmly on the Solar System map. The mission has revolutionised our view of Solar System satellites, arguably matching their scientific…
In this Thesis I studied the formation of the four giant planets of the Solar System in the framework of the nucleated instability hypothesis. The model considers that solids and gas accretion are coupled in an interactive fashion, taking…
This work reviews the long-term evolution of the atmosphere of Venus, and modulation of its composition by interior-exterior cycling. The formation and evolution of Venus's atmosphere, leading to contemporary surface conditions, remain…
The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas giants…
Uranus has a tilted rotation axis, which is supposed to be caused by a giant impact. In general, an impact event also changes the internal compositional distribution and drives mass ejection from the planet, which may provide the origin of…
We present here observational evidence that the snowline plays a significant role in the formation and evolution of gas giant planets. When considering the population of observed exoplanets, we find a boundary in mass-semimajor axis space…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) have three main components: a central star (CS), ionised gas and dust in the nebula. Each of them contains critical chemical fingerprints of their evolution, serving as tracers of the evolution, nucleosynthesis and…
Both Uranus and Neptune are thought to have strong zonal winds with velocities of several hundred meters per second. These wind velocities, however, assume solid-body rotation periods based on Voyager 2 measurements of periodic variations…
Hot Jupiters are new laboratories for the physics of giant planet atmospheres. Subject to unusual forcing conditions, the circulation regime on these planets may be unlike anything known in the Solar System. Characterizing the atmospheric…
We present a new framework for constructing agnostic and yet physical models for planetary interiors and apply it to Uranus and Neptune. Unlike previous research that either impose rigid assumptions or rely on simplified empirical profiles,…
The weather layers of the gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, comprise the shallow atmospheric layers that are influenced energetically by a combination of incoming solar radiation and localised latent heating of condensates, as well as…
We survey the basic principles of atmospheric dynamics relevant to explaining existing and future observations of exoplanets, both gas giant and terrestrial. Given the paucity of data on exoplanet atmospheres, our approach is to emphasize…
We review several aspects of the calculation of exoplanet model atmospheres in the current era, with a focus on understanding the temperature-pressure profiles of atmospheres and their emitted spectra. Most of the focus is on gas giant…
Uranus and Neptune share properties that are distinct from the other giant planets in the solar system, but they are also distinct from one another, particularly in their relative internal heat flux. Not only does Neptune emit about ten…
More than 30 years have passed since the Voyager 2 fly-bys of Uranus and Neptune. I discuss a range of lessons learned from Voyager, broadly grouped into process, planning, and people. In terms of process, we must be open to new concepts:…
Looking ahead to the next decade and imagining the landscape of astronomy in 2020, it is clear that astronomical surveys, large and small, plus extensive follow-up projects, will be a great engine of progress in our profession. Surveys have…
Since the discovery of the first giant planet outside the solar system in 1995 (Mayor & Queloz 1995), more than 180 extrasolar planets have been discovered. With improving detection capabilities, a new class of planets with masses 5-20…
We have now accumulated a wealth of observations of the planet-formation environment and of mature planetary systems. These data allow us to test and refine theories of gas-giant planet formation by placing constraints on the conditions and…
In this paper we investigate the formation of Uranus and Neptune, according to the core-nucleated accretion model, considering formation locations ranging from 12 to 30 AU from the Sun, and with various disk solid-surface densities and core…
Over the last twenty years, the search for extrasolar planets revealed us the rich diversity of the outcomes of the formation and evolution of planetary systems. In order to fully understand how these extrasolar planets came to be, however,…