Related papers: Magnetospheres of Terrestrial Exoplanets and Exomo…
Magnetic interactions between a planet and its environment are known to lead to aurorae and shocks in the solar system. The large number of close-in exoplanets that have been discovered so far triggered a renewed interest in understanding…
Astrophysical observations reveal a large diversity of radii and masses of exoplanets. It is important to characterize the interiors of exoplanets to understand planetary diversity and further determine how unique, or not, Earth is.…
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…
Exoplanets with and without a magnetic field are predicted to form, behave, and evolve very differently. Therefore, there is great need to directly constrain these fields to holistically understand the properties of exoplanets including…
From analytical studies of tidal heating, eclipses and planetary illumination, it is clear that the exomoon habitable zone (EHZ) - the set of moon and host planet orbits that permit liquid water on an Earthlike moon's surface - is a…
The search for radio emission from extra-solar planets has so far been unsuccessful. Much of the effort in modelling the predicted emission has been based on the analogy with the well-known emission from Jupiter. Unlike Jupiter, however,…
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
Future remote sensing of exoplanets will be enhanced by a thorough investigation of our solar system Ice Giants (Neptune-size planets). What can the configuration of the magnetic field tell us (remotely) about the interior, and what…
During planet formation, a gas giant will interact with smaller protoplanets that stray within its sphere of gravitational influence. We investigate the outcome of interactions between gas giants and terrestrial-sized protoplanets with…
Recent results showed that the magnetic field of M-dwarf (dM) stars, currently the main targets in searches for terrestrial planets, is very different from the solar one, both in topology as well as in intensity. In particular, the…
More than 200 moons exist in our Solar System, yet no exomoon has been confirmed to date. While the innermost two planets of the Solar System lack natural satellites and most studies favour the existence of exomoons around long-period…
Exoplanet discoveries have motivated numerous efforts to find unseen populations of exomoons, yet they have been unsuccessful. A plausible explanation is that most discovered planets are located on close-in orbits, which would make their…
Exoplanetary science continues to excite and surprise with its rich diversity. We discuss here some key aspects potentially influencing the range of exoplanetary terrestrial-type atmospheres which could exist in nature. We are motivated by…
It is currently unknown how common life is on exoplanets, or how long planets can remain viable for life. To date, we have a superficial notion of habitability, a necessary first step, but so far lacking an understanding of the detailed…
The satellites of extrasolar planets (exomoons) have been recently proposed as astrobiological targets. Since giant planets in the habitable zone are thought to have migrated there, it is possible that they may have captured a former…
Jupiter and Saturn play host to an impressive array of satellites, making it reasonable to suspect that similar systems of moons might exist around giant extrasolar planets. Furthermore, a significant population of such planets is known to…
Exoplanets are now being discovered in profusion. However, to understand their character requires spectral models and data. These elements of remote sensing can yield temperatures, compositions, and even weather patterns, but only if…
The magnetospheres of the outer planets exhibit turbulent phenomena in an environment which is qualitatively different compared to the solar wind or the interstellar medium. The key differences are the finite sizes of the magnetospheres…
The magnetopause marks the outer edge of the Earth's magnetosphere and a distinct boundary between solar wind and magnetospheric plasma populations. In this letter, we use global magnetohydrodynamic simulations to examine the response of…
The discovery of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun has accelerated over the past decade, and this trend will continue as new space- and ground-based observatories employ next-generation instrumentation to search the skies for…