Related papers: Exoplanetary Interiors
The mass and distribution of metals in the interiors of exoplanets are essential for constraining their formation and evolution processes. Nevertheless, with only masses and radii measured, the determination of exoplanet interior structures…
Planets and the stars they orbit are born from the same cloud of gas and dust, and the primordial compositions of rocky exoplanets have been assumed to have iron and refractory abundance ratios consistent with their host star. To test this…
In order to characterize giant exoplanets and better understand their origin, knowledge of how the planet's composition depends on its mass and stellar environment is required. In this work, we simulate the thermal evolution of gaseous…
Mass and radius of planets transiting their host stars are provided by radial velocity and photometric observations. Structural models of solid exoplanet interiors are then constructed by using equations of state for the radial density…
The radius of an exoplanet may be affected by various factors, including irradiation, planet mass and heavy element content. A significant number of transiting exoplanets have now been discovered for which the mass, radius, semi-major axis,…
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.…
Most our knowledge about rocky exoplanets is based on their measure of mass and radius. These two parameters are routinely measured and are used to categorise different populations of observed exoplanets. They are also tightly linked to the…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
An exoplanet's structure and composition are first-order controls of the planet's habitability. We explore which aspects of bulk terrestrial planet composition and interior structure affect the chief observables of an exoplanet: its mass…
The increasing precision of planetary mass and radius observations is bringing major questions about the structure and formation of planets--such as the nature of the radius valley and origin of super-Mercuries--within reach, demanding the…
We use new interior models of cold planets to investigate the mass-radius relationships of solid exoplanets, considering planets made primarily of iron, silicates, water, and carbon compounds. We find that the mass-radius relationships for…
Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…
Approximately half of the extrasolar planets (exoplanets) with radii less than four Earth radii are in orbits with short periods. Despite their sheer abundance, the compositions of such planets are largely unknown. The available evidence…
We examine the uncertainties in current planetary models and we quantify their impact on the planet cooling histories and mass-radius relationships. These uncertainties include (i) the differences between the various equations of state used…
The hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the past two decades offer a new perspective on planetary structure. Instead of being the archetypal examples of planets, those of our Solar System are merely possible outcomes of…
The composition of rocky exoplanets in the context of stars' composition provides important constraints to formation theories. In this study, we select a sample of exoplanets with mass and radius measurements with an uncertainty <25% and…
The radii and orbital periods of 4000+ confirmed/candidate exoplanets have been precisely measured by the Kepler mission. The radii show a bimodal distribution, with two peaks corresponding to smaller planets (likely rocky) and larger…
The bulk composition of an exoplanet is commonly inferred from its average density. For small planets, however, the average density is not unique within the range of compositions. Variations of a number of important planetary…
Many exoplanets have been discovered with radii of 1-4 Earth radii, between that of Earth and Neptune. A number of these are known to have densities consistent with solid compositions, while others are "sub-Neptunes" likely to have…
The elemental compositions of exoplanets encode information about their formation environments and internal structures. While volatile ratios such as carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) are used to trace formation location, the rock-forming elements -…