Related papers: Making Habitable Worlds: Planets Versus Megastruct…
From life on other planets to virtual classrooms this thesis spans a wide array of research topics all based on how we see other worlds. Our understanding of everything from moon phases, the planets in our Solar System, and exoplanet…
The notion of a Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), or regions of the Milky Way galaxy that preferentially maintain the conditions to sustain complex life, has recently gained attention due to the detection of numerous exoplanets and advances…
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is currently being pursued using multiple techniques and in different wavelength bands. Dyson spheres, megastructures that could be constructed by advanced civilizations to harness the radiation…
A Dyson Sphere is a hypothetical structure that an advanced civilization might build around a star to intercept all of the star's light for its energy needs. One usually thinks of it as a spherical shell about one astronomical unit (AU) in…
Extrasolar multiple-planet systems provide valuable opportunities for testing theories of planet formation and evolution. The architectures of the known multiple-planet systems demonstrate a fascinating level of diversity, which motivates…
According to the current understanding of cosmic structure formation, the precursors of the most massive structures in the Universe began to form shortly after the Big Bang, in regions corresponding to the largest fluctuations in the cosmic…
For centuries, humanity wondered if there were other worlds like ours in the Universe. For about a quarter of a century, we have known that planetary systems exist around other stars, and more than 3800 exoplanetary systems have been…
As of 2025, over 6000 planets are known to orbit stars other than our Sun. We can measure their sizes and orbital periods, infer their masses and temperatures, and constrain their compositions. Based on these data, about 1% of extrasolar…
Just fourteen years ago the Solar System represented the only known planetary system in the Galaxy, and conceptions of planet formation were shaped by this sample of one. Since then, 320 planets have been discovered orbiting 276 individual…
Searches for planets via gravitational lensing have focused on cases in which the projected separation, a, between planet and star is comparable to the Einstein radius, R_E. This paper considers smaller orbital separations and demonstrates…
With the wealth of planets that have been discovered over the past $\sim$ 20 years, the field can broadly be divided into two regimes. For understanding broad occurrence and formation rates, large numbers of planets allow for population…
Superflares on giant stars have up to 100,000 times more energy than the high energy solar flares. However, it is disputed, whether scaling up a solar-type dynamo could explain such a magnitude difference. We investigate the flaring…
In an attempt to select stars that can host planets with characteristics similar to our own, we selected seven solar-type stars known to host planets in the habitable zone and for which spectroscopic stellar parameters are available. For…
Recent results have shown that many of the known extrasolar planetary systems contain regions which are stable for both Earth-mass and Saturn-mass planets. Here we simulate the formation of terrestrial planets in four planetary systems --…
KIC 8462852 stood out among more than 100,000 stars in the Kepler catalogue because of the strange features of its light curve: a wide, asymmetric dimming taking up to 15 per cent of the light at D793 and a period of multiple, narrow…
Following the groundbreaking discovery of the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi b in 1995, the field of planet formation has become a cornerstone of modern astrophysics. This is in part due to the revelation of an…
The search for exoplanets has revealed a diversity of planetary system architectures, the vast majority of which diverge significantly from the template of the solar system. In particular, giant planets beyond the snow line are relatively…
Cosmos has always sparked human curiosity to unveil and speculate its fascinating secrets. This curiosity has ultimately opened a window to other worlds. After years of observation, computation, and data analysis, scientists have revealed…
Extrasolar planetary host stars are enriched in key planet-building elements. These enrichments have the potential to drastically alter the building blocks available for terrestrial planet formation. Here we report on the combination of…
One of the most surprising discoveries of extrasolar planets is the detection of planets in moderately close binary star systems. The Jovian-type planets in the two binaries of Gamma Cephei and GJ 86 have brought to the forefront questions…