Related papers: Reduced late bombardment on rocky exoplanets aroun…
Exoplanet surveys around M dwarfs have detected a growing number of exoplanets with Earth-like insolation. It is expected that some of those planets are rocky planets with the potential for temperate climates favourable to surface liquid…
In this work we consider the potential of cometary impacts to deliver complex organic molecules and the prebiotic building blocks required for life to rocky exoplanets. Numerical experiments have demonstrated that for these molecules to…
Volatile loss from exoplanetary atmospheres and its possible implications for the longevity of habitable surface conditions is a topic of vigorous debate currently. The vast majority of the habitable zone terrestrial-like exoplanets known…
Context. M dwarfs are key targets for terrestrial exoplanet studies, with prospects for atmospheric spectroscopy. However, strong stellar magnetic activity and frequent flaring require modelling efforts to assess their impact on planetary…
Terrestrial planets at the inner edge of the habitable zone of late-K and M-dwarf stars are expected to be in synchronous rotation, as a consequence of strong tidal interactions with their host stars. Previous global climate model (GCM)…
Detection of an atmosphere around a terrestrial exoplanet will be a major milestone in the field, but our observational capacities are biased towards to tidally locked, close-in planets orbiting M-dwarf stars. The atmospheres of these…
The prospects for the habitability of M-dwarf planets have long been debated, due to key differences between the unique stellar and planetary environments around these low-mass stars, as compared to hotter, more luminous Sun-like stars.…
Potentially-habitable planets orbiting M-dwarfs are of intense astrobiological interest because they are the only rocky worlds accessible to biosignature search over the next 10+ years due to a confluence of observational effects.…
This paper considers how planetesimal impacts affect planetary atmospheres. Atmosphere evolution depends on the ratio of gain from volatiles to loss from atmosphere stripping f_v; for constant bombardment, atmospheres with f_v<1 are…
M-type stars are prime targets for exoplanet searches within their habitable zones (HZs). These stars also exhibit significant magnetic flaring activity, particularly during their first billion years, which can potentially accelerate the…
The chemical environments of young planets are assumed to be largely influenced by impacts of bodies lingering on unstable trajectories after the dissolution of the protoplanetary disk. We explore the chemical consequences of impacts within…
Dynamical considerations, presented herein via analytic scalings and numerical experiments, imply that Earth-mass planets accreting in regions that become habitable zones of M dwarf stars form within several million years. Temperatures in…
X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation impacting on a gas produce a variety of effects that, depending on the electron content, may provide a significant heating of the illuminated region. In a planetary atmosphere of solar composition,…
Ocean salinity is known to dramatically affect the climates of Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars, with high salinity leading to less ice and higher surface temperature. However, how ocean composition impacts climate under different…
In protoplanetary disks, small mm-cm-sized pebbles drift inwards which can aid planetary growth and influence the chemical composition of their natal disks. Gaps in protoplanetary disks can hinder the effective inward transport of pebbles…
It is generally accepted that silicate-metal (`rocky') planet formation relies on coagulation from a mixture of sub-Mars sized planetary embryos and (smaller) planetesimals that dynamically emerge from the evolving circum-solar disc in the…
Earth-sized planets were observed in close-in orbits around M dwarfs. While more and more planets are expected to be uncovered around M dwarfs, theories of their formation and dynamical evolution are still in their infancy. We investigate…
Earth-like planets orbiting M-dwarfs are prominent future targets when searching for life outside the solar system. We apply our newly developed Coupled Atmosphere Biogeochemistry model to investigate the coupling between the biosphere,…
Detecting and characterizing the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets is a key goal of exoplanetary astronomy, one that may now be within reach given the upcoming campaign to conduct a large-scale survey of rocky M-dwarf worlds with the…
Young terrestrial planets, when they are still embedded in a circumstellar disk, accumulate an atmosphere of nebula gas. The evolution and eventual evaporation of the protoplanetary disk affect the structure and dynamics of the planetary…