Related papers: Compositional Diversity of Rocky Exoplanets
The rapid advances in observations of the different populations of exoplanets, the characterization of their host stars and the links to the properties of their planetary systems, the detailed studies of protoplanetary disks, and the…
With the number of confirmed rocky exoplanets increasing steadily, their characterisation and the search for exoplanetary biospheres is becoming an increasingly urgent issue in astrobiology. We aim to investigate the possibility of…
The bulk density of a planet, as measured by mass and radius, is a result of planet structure and composition. Relative proportions of iron core, rocky mantle, and gaseous envelopes are degenerate for a given density. This degeneracy is…
The study of the chemical composition of Planetary Nebulae in external galaxies is of paramount importance in the fields of stellar evolution and of the chemical enrichment history of galaxies. In the last years a number of spectroscopic…
The majority of stars are now thought to support exoplanets. Many of those exoplanets discovered thus far are categorized as rocky objects with an atmosphere. Most of these objects are however hot due to their short orbital period. Models…
It is a truism within the exoplanet field that "to know the planet, you must know the star." This pertains to the physical properties of the star (i.e. mass, radius, luminosity, age, multiplicity), the activity and magnetic fields, as well…
A primary goal of exoplanet characterization is to use a planet's current composition to understand how that planet formed. For example, the C/O ratio has long been recognized as carrying important information on the chemistry of volatile…
Studying the atmospheres of exoplanets is one of the most promising ways to learn about distant worlds beyond our solar system. The composition of an exoplanet's atmosphere can provide critical insights into its geology and potential…
Priorities in exo-planet research are rapidly moving from finding planets to characterizing their physical properties. Of key importance is their chemical composition, which feeds back into our understanding of planet formation. For the…
Current technology is not able to map the topography of rocky exoplanets, simply because the objects are too faint and far away to resolve them. Nevertheless, indirect effect of topography should be soon observable thanks to photometry…
The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…
Planets form from the same cloud of molecular gas and dust as their host stars. Confirming if planetary bodies acquire the same refractory element composition as their natal disc during formation, and how efficiently volatile elements are…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
Since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet more than twenty years ago, we have discovered nearly four thousand planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Current observational instruments (on board the Hubble Space Telescope,…
Knowledge of the composition of material that will form planets is crucial to understand planetary diversity and the occurrence of potentially habitable planets. Ultimately, it is the chemistry in circumstellar disks that determines the…
The relative abundances of carbon and oxygen have long been recognized as fundamental diagnostics of stellar chemical evolution. Now, the growing number of exoplanet observations enable estimation of these elements in exoplanetary…
The presence of rings and moons around exoplanets is likely to be one of the next great discoveries in exoplanet research. Using theories developed for the Solar System, we explore the possibility of coupled ring-moon cycles around…
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,…
If the photospheres of solar-type stars represent the composition of circumstellar disks from which any planets formed, spectroscopic determinations of stellar elemental abundances offer information on the composition of those planets,…
Discovery of only handful of exoplanets required to establish a correlation between giant planet occurrence and metallicity of their host stars. More than 20 years have already passed from that discovery, however, many questions are still…