Related papers: A Note on Planet Size and Cooling Rate
Aims: The long-term carbon cycle for planets with a surface entirely covered by oceans works differently from that of the present-day Earth because inefficient erosion leads to a strong dependence of the weathering rate on the rate of…
Previous studies have demonstrated that continental carbon-silicate weathering is important to the continued habitability of a terrestrial planet. Despite this, few studies have considered the influence of land on the climate of a…
Tidal dissipation in planetary interiors is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. New constraints are now obtained both in the Solar and exoplanetary systems. Tidal dissipation…
It is argued that the tight interconnection between biological, climatological, and geophysical factors in the history of the terrestrial biosphere can teach us something of wider importance regarding the general astrobiological evolution…
Planet-disk interaction predicts a change in the orbital elements of an embedded planet. Through linear and fully hydrodynamical studies it has been found that migration is typically directed inwards. Hence, this migration process gives…
Stellar flares, winds and coronal mass ejections form the space weather. They are signatures of the magnetic activity of cool stars and, since activity varies with age, mass and rotation, the space weather that extra-solar planets…
This article deals with the most recent developments in the field of exoplanetary science connecting the interior of the planets with their habitability. In this issue, I have specified the importance of interior dynamics and briefly…
Context: The long-term carbonate-silicate cycle plays an important role in the evolution of Earth's climate and, therefore, may also be an important mechanism in the evolution of the climates of Earth-like exoplanets. Aims: We investigate…
Many observed giant planets lie on eccentric orbits. Such orbits could be the result of strong scatterings with other giant planets. The same dynamical instability that produces these scatterings may also cause habitable planets in interior…
Pressure is a key parameter in the physics and chemistry of planet formation and evolution. Previous studies have erroneously assumed that internal pressures monotonically increase with the mass of a body. Using smoothed particle…
Carbonate-silicate weathering feedback is thought to stabilize Earth's climate on geologic timescales. If climate warms, faster mineral dissolution and increased rainfall speed up weathering, increasing CO2 drawdown and opposing the initial…
Exoplanets with short orbit period reside very close to their host stars. They transition very rapidly between different sectors of the circumstellar space environment along their orbit, leading to large variations of the magnetic field in…
A balanced ratio of ocean to land is believed to be essential for an Earth-like biosphere and one may conjecture that plate-tectonics planets should be similar in geological properties. After all, the volume of continental crust evolves…
The internal heat loss, or cooling, of a planet determines its structure and evolution. We study the effects of irradiation, metallicity of the atmosphere, heat redistribution, stratospheres, and the depth where the heat redistribution…
Kepler's observation shows that many of the detected planets are super-Earths. They are inside a range of critical masses overlapping the core masses (2-20 $M_{\bigoplus}$), which would trigger the runaway accretion and develop the gas…
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…
We present a brief overview of the main effects by which a star will have an impact (positive or negative) on the surface habitability of planets in orbit around it. Specifically, we review how spectral, spatial and temporal variations in…
No matter how fascinating and exotic other terrestrial planets are revealed to be, nothing generates more excitement than announcements regarding their habitability. From the observation of Mars to present-day efforts toward Venus and the…
Planets in close-in orbits interact magnetically and tidally with their host stars. These interactions lead to a net torque that makes close-in planets migrate inward or outward depending on their orbital distance. We compare systematically…
Water and land surfaces on a planet interact with gases in the atmosphere and with radiation from the star. These interactions define the environments that prevail on the planet, some of which may be more amenable to prebiotic chemistry,…