Related papers: Greater climate sensitivity and variability on TRA…
Atmospheric compositions for rocky exoplanets will depend strongly on the bulk planetary composition and the orbital position of the planet. Non-traditional gases may be present in the atmospheres of exceptionally hot planets. Atmospheres…
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.…
Small rocky planets, as well as larger planets that suffered extensive volatile loss, tend to be drier and have thinner atmospheres as compared to Earth. Such planets probably outnumber worlds better endowed with volatiles, being the most…
One significant difference between the atmospheres of stars and exoplanets is the presence of condensed particles (clouds or hazes) in the atmosphere of the latter. The main goal of this paper is to develop a self-consistent microphysical…
In recent years, numerical models that were developed for Earth have been adapted to study exoplanetary climates to understand how the broad range of possible exoplanetary properties affects their climate state. The recent discovery and…
Before about 500 million years ago, most probably our planet experienced temporary snowball conditions, with continental and sea ices covering a large fraction of its surface. This points to a potential bistability of Earth's climate, that…
Detecting and characterizing the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets has proven to be challenging for JWST. Transit spectroscopy of the TRAPPIST-1 planets has been impacted by the effects of spots and faculae on the host star. Secondary…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
The habitability of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs is a key topic in the search for extraterrestrial life. The climates of these planets differ significantly from the Earth's due to their likely tidal locking, resulting in a…
Potentially habitable exoplanets are targets of great interest for the James Webb Space Telescope and upcoming mission concepts such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Clouds strongly affect climate and habitability, but predicting their…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
Recently the Spitzer Space Telescope observed the transiting extrasolar planets, TrES-1 and HD209458b. These observations have provided the first estimates of the day side thermal flux from two extrasolar planets orbiting Sun-like stars. In…
Atmospheric collapse is likely to be of fundamental importance to tidally locked rocky exoplanets but remains understudied. Here, general results on the heat transport and stability of tidally locked terrestrial-type atmospheres are…
A planet's surface conditions can significantly impact its climate and habitability. In this study, we use the 3D general circulation model ExoPlaSim to systematically vary dayside land cover on a synchronously rotating, temperate rocky…
Exoplanets residing close to their stars can experience evolution of both their physical structures and their orbits due to the influence of their host stars. In this work, we present a coupled analysis of dynamical tidal dissipation and…
Three Earth-sized exoplanets were recently discovered close to the habitable zone of the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. The nature of these planets has yet to be determined, since their masses remain unmeasured and no observational…
Robustly modeling the inner edge of the habitable zone is essential for determining the most promising potentially habitable exoplanets for atmospheric characterization. Global climate models (GCMs) have become the standard tool for…
A primary goal of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres is to constrain planetary bulk properties, such as their metallicity, C/O ratio, and intrinsic heat. However, there are significant uncertainties in many aspects of atmospheric physics,…
Understanding the possible climatic conditions on rocky extrasolar planets, and thereby their potential habitability, is one of the major subjects of exoplanet research. Determining how the climate, as well as potential atmospheric…
Astronomical surveys have identified numerous exoplanets with bulk compositions that are unlike the planets of the Solar System, including rocky super-Earths and gas-enveloped sub-Neptunes. Observing the atmospheres of these objects…