Related papers: Comparative Study of Planetary Atmospheres and Imp…
The difference between the measured atmospheric abundances of neon, argon, krypton and xenon for Venus, the Earth and Mars is striking. Because these abundances drop by at least two orders of magnitude as one moves outward from Venus to…
The interiors of many planets consist mostly of fluid layers. When these layers are subject to superadiabatic temperature or compositional gradients, turbulent convection transports heat and momentum. In addition, planets are fast rotators.…
Escape of an early atmosphere from Titan, during which time NH3 could be converted by photolysis into the present N2 dominated atmosphere, is an important problem in planetary science. Recently Gilliam and Lerman (2014) estimated escape…
The authors and co-signers of the Terrestrial Planets Comparative Climatology (TPCC) mission concept white paper advocate that planetary science in the next decade would greatly benefit from comparatively studying the fundamental behavior…
The internal structure of gas giant planets may be more complex than the commonly assumed core-envelope structure with an adiabatic temperature profile. Different primordial internal structures as well as various physical processes can lead…
Numerous solar system atmospheres possess aerosols including the characteristic organic hazes of Titan and Pluto. Haze particles substantially impact atmospheric temperatures structures and may provide organic material to the surface of a…
Planets that are embedded in the changing magnetic fields of their host stars can experience significant induction heating in their interiors caused by the planet's orbital motion. For induction heating to be substantial, the planetary…
The similarity of Venus and Earth in bulk properties make Venus an appealing target for future colonization. Several proposals have been put forward for colonizing and even terraforming Venus despite the extreme conditions on the planet's…
This brief review will discuss the current knowledge on the origin and evolution of the nitrogen atmospheres of the icy bodies in the solar system, particularly of Titan, Triton and Pluto. An important tool to analyse and understand the…
We discuss problems of planetesimal migration in the emerging Solar System and exoplanetary systems. Protoplanetary disk evolution models and the formation of planets are considered. The formation of the Moon and of the asteroid and…
The discovery of thousands of highly irradiated, low-mass, exoplanets has led to the idea that atmospheric escape is an important process that can drive their evolution. Of particular interest is the inference from recent exoplanet…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be at infrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
Planetary systems are angular momentum reservoirs generated during star formation. This accretion process produces very powerful engines able to drive the optical jets and the molecular outflows. A fraction of the engine energy is released…
The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal…
Interior models of Jupiter and Saturn are calculated and compared in the framework of the three-layer assumption, which rely on the perception that both planets consist of three globally homogeneous regions: a dense core, a metallic…
We investigate the interaction between the magnetized stellar wind plasma and the partially ionized hydrodynamic hydrogen outflow from the escaping upper atmosphere of non- or weakly magnetized hot Jupiters. We use the well-studied hot…
The interior flux of a giant planet impacts atmospheric motion, and the atmosphere dictates the interior's cooling. Here we use a non-hydrostatic general circulation model (Simulating Nonhydrostatic Atmospheres on Planets, SNAP) coupled…
We used {\sl \textup{ab initio}} molecular dynamics simulations to calculate the high-pressure melting temperatures of the three potential core components. The planetary adiabats were obtained by solving the hydrostatic equations in a…
The atmospheric pressure-temperature profiles for transiting giant planets cross a range of chemical transitions. Here we show that the particular shape of these irradiated profiles for warm giant planets below 1300 K lead to striking…
Ground-based and spacecraft telescopic observations, combined with an intensive modeling effort, have greatly enhanced our understanding of hot giant planets and brown dwarfs over the past ten years. Although these objects are all fluid,…