Related papers: Hydrogen dominated atmospheres on terrestrial mass…
Recent observations found close-in planets with significant atmospheres of hydrogen and helium in great abundance. These are the so-called super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. Their atmospheric composition suggests that they formed early during…
A terrestrial planet is molten during formation and may remain so if subject to intense insolation or tidal forces. Observations continue to favour the detection and characterisation of hot planets, potentially with large outgassed…
In an Earth-analogue atmosphere, water vapour is a key carrier of hydrogen in the lower atmosphere with its transport above the tropopause controlling the atmospheric hydrogen escape rate. On the Earth, this escape is limited by transport…
The evolution of a planet's atmosphere depends strongly on its host star's properties. When their host stars are younger, planets can experience stronger winds and EUV emissions. This is particularly true for planets orbiting M-dwarfs due…
The recent discovery and initial characterization of sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets that receive stellar irradiance of approximately Earth's raised the prospect of finding habitable planets in the coming decade, because some of these…
Recently, properties of exoplanet atmospheres have been constrained via multi-wavelength transit observation, which measures an apparent decrease in stellar brightness during planetary transit in front of its host star (called transit…
There is growing observational and theoretical evidence suggesting that atmospheric escape is a key driver of planetary evolution. Commonly, planetary evolution models employ simple analytic formulae (e.g., energy limited escape) that are…
Upper atmospheres of Hot Jupiters are subject to extreme radiation conditions that can result in rapid atmospheric escape. The composition and structure of the upper atmospheres of these planets are affected by the high-energy spectrum 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…
The next step on the path toward another Earth is to find atmospheres similar to those of Earth and Venus - high-molecular-weight (secondary) atmospheres - on rocky exoplanets. Many rocky exoplanets are born with thick (> 10 kbar)…
Massive steam and CO$_2$ atmospheres have been proposed for magma ocean outgassing of Earth and terrestrial planets. Yet formation of such atmospheres depends on volatile exchange with the molten interior, governed by volatile solubilities…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
Photo-evaporative mass loss sculpts the atmospheric evolution of tightly-orbiting sub-Neptune-mass exoplanets. To date, models of the mass loss from warm Neptunes have assumed that the atmospheric abundances remain constant throughout the…
Cold super-Earths which retain their primordial, H-He dominated atmosphere could have surfaces that are warm enough to host liquid water. This would be due to the collision induced absorption (CIA) of infra-red light by hydrogen, which…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
Strong ionization on close-in extrasolar giant planets suggests that their atmospheres may be affected by ion drag and resistive heating arising from wind-driven electrodynamics. Recent models of ion drag on these planets, however, are…
Interactions between magma oceans and overlying atmospheres on young rocky planets leads to an evolving feedback of outgassing, greenhouse forcing, and mantle melt fraction. Previous studies have predominantly focused on the solidification…
We couple a simplified model for the galactic chemical evolution, with software that models the condensation of dust in protoplanetary disks and software that models the interior structure of planets in order to estimate the effects that…
The magma ocean period was a critical phase determining how Earth atmosphere developed into habitability. However there are major uncertainties in the role of key processes such as outgassing from the planetary interior and escape of…
Habitability is a measure of an environment's potential to support life, and a habitable exoplanet supports liquid water on its surface. However, a planet's success in maintaining liquid water on its surface is the end result of a complex…