Related papers: Ethane clathrate hydrate infrared signatures for s…
Context. Near- and mid-infrared observations have revealed the presence of organic refractory materials in the solar system, in cometary nuclei and on the surface of centaurs, Kuiper-belt and trans-neptunian objects. In these astrophysical…
Water reservoirs in the Solar System exhibit a deuterium enrichment that links back to the physical environment at the time of stellar birth. Gas-phase and ice-grain deuterium enrichments occur through chemical processes that operate at low…
Nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane are key materials in the far outer Solar System where their high volatility enables them to sublimate, potentially driving activity at very low temperatures. Knowledge of their vapor pressures and…
An increasing number of potentially habitable terrestrial planets and planet candidates are found by ongoing planet search programs. The search for atmospheric signatures to establish planetary habitability and the presence of life might be…
We report 8- to 13-micron spectral observations of Neptune and Uranus from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility spanning more than a decade. The spectroscopic data indicate a steady increase in Neptune's mean atmospheric 12-micron ethane…
We revisit the possibility of detecting an extrasolar planet around a background star as it crosses the fold caustic of a foreground binary lens. During such an event, the planet's flux can be magnified by a factor of ~100 or more. The…
The surfaces of some icy moons, such as Jupiter's moon Europa, are heavily bombarded by energetic particles that can alter the surface materials and affect the composition of its exosphere. Detection of CO2 on Europa's surface indicate that…
It is shown that the temperature dependence of Langmuir constants contains all the information needed to determine spherically averaged intermolecular potentials. An analytical ``inversion'' method based on the standard statistical model of…
In their Letter, Tsiaras et al. reported the detection of water vapour in the atmosphere of K2-18 b, an exoplanet of 7 to 10 Earth masses located in the habitable zone of an M-dwarf star. The detection is based on an absorption feature seen…
The potential habitability of a terrestrial planet is usually defined by the possible existence of liquid water on its surface. The potential presence of liquid water depends on many factors such as, most importantly, surface temperatures.…
Remote observations of comets, especially using high spectral resolution millimeter spectroscopy, have enabled the detection of over 25 molecules in comets for the last twenty years. Among the molecules identified at radio wavelengths,…
Warm Jupiters are ideal laboratories for testing the limitations of current tools for atmospheric studies. The cross-correlation technique is a commonly used method to investigate the atmospheres of close-in planets, leveraging their large…
Almost all planetary atmospheres are affected by disequilibrium chemical processes. In this paper we introduce our recently developed Chemical Kinetic Model (\texttt{ChemKM}). We show that the results of our HD189733b model are in good…
We map the high-pressure phase diagram of nitrogen hydrate up to 16 GPa at room temperature by combining neutron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and crystal structure prediction. We reveal a rich sequence of structural transformations,…
Structure, stability and reactivity of clathrate hydrates with or without hydrogen encapsulation are studied using standard density functional calculations. Conceptual density functional theory based reactivity descriptors and the…
While high-resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy (HRCCS) techniques have proven effective at characterizing the atmospheres of transiting and non-transiting hot Jupiters, the limitations of these techniques are not well understood. We…
A striking feature of the atmosphere of Titan is that no heavy noble gases other than argon were detected by the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) aboard the Huygens probe during its descent to Titan's surface in January 2005. Here…
The characterization of extrasolar earth-like atmospheres for biosignatures remains one of the most compelling and elusive challenges in astronomy. Coronagraphy, nulling interferometry and free-flying occulters have been advanced as…
Chondrites are rocky fragments of asteroids that formed at different times and heliocentric distances in the early solar system. Most chondrite groups contain water-bearing minerals, attesting that both water-ice and dust were accreted on…
Most rocky planets in the galaxy orbit a cool host star, and there is large uncertainty among theoretical models whether these planets can retain an atmosphere. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) might be able to settle this question…