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Time is arguably the key limiting factor for interstellar exploration. At high speeds, flyby missions to nearby stars by laser propelled wafersats taking 50-100 years would be feasible. Directed energy launch systems could accelerate on 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…
(abridged abstract) Theoretical arguments indicate that close-in terrestial exoplanets may have weak magnetic fields. As described in the companion article (Paper I), a weak magnetic field results in a high flux of galactic cosmic rays to…
Large ground- and space-based telescopes will be able to observe Earth-like planets in the near future. We explore how different planetary surfaces can strongly influence the climate, atmospheric composition, and remotely detectable spectra…
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
Observed Hot Jupiters exhibit a wide range of physical properties. For a given mass, many planets have inflated radii, while others are surprisingly compact and may harbor large central cores. Motivated by the observational sample, this…
Earth and other rocky bodies in the inner Solar System are significantly depleted in carbon compared to the Sun and interstellar medium (ISM) dust. Observations indicate that over half of carbon in the ISM and comets is in refractory forms,…
No matter how fascinating and exotic other terrestrial planets are revealed to be, nothing generates more excitement than announcements regarding their habitability. From the observation of Mars to present-day efforts toward Venus and the…
Solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) produce adverse space weather effects at Earth. Planets in the close habitable zone of magnetically active M dwarfs may experience more extreme space weather than at Earth, including frequent CME impacts…
Active comets have been detected in several exoplanetary systems, although so far only indirectly, when the dust or gas in the extended coma has transited in front of the stellar disk. The large optical surface and relatively high…
Debris disks are exoplanetary systems containing planets, minor bodies (such as asteroids and comets) and debris dust. Unseen planets are presumed to perturb the minor bodies into crossing orbits, generating small dust grains that are…
Observed high multiplicity planetary systems are often tightly packed. Numerical studies indicate that such systems are susceptible to dynamical instabilities. Dynamical instabilities in close-in tightly packed systems, similar to those…
Understanding the concept of habitability is related to an evolutionary knowledge of the particular planet-in-question. Additional indications so-called "systemic aspects" of the planetary system as a whole governs a particular planet's…
The ancestor philosophers' dream of thousands of new worlds is finally realised: about 3500 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the neighborhood of our Sun. Most of them are very different from those we used to know in our Solar…
During their main sequence lifetimes, the majority of all Galactic Disc field stars must endure at least one stellar intruder passing within a few hundred AU. Mounting observations of planet-star separations near or beyond this distance…
The discovery of Exoplanetary Systems has challenged some of the theories of planet formation, which assume unperturbed evolution of the host star and its planets. However, in star clusters the interactions with flyby stars and binaries may…
Understanding stellar evolution and its effect on planetary systems is crucial for correctly interpreting the chemical constraints of exo-planetary material that can be given to us by white dwarfs. This article will describe how asteroids,…
As the number of detected rocky extrasolar planets increases, the question of whether their surfaces could be habitable is becoming more pertinent. On Earth, the long-term carbonate silicate cycle is able to regulate surface temperatures…
Disc-driven planet migration is integral to the formation of planetary systems. In standard, gas-dominated protoplanetary discs, low-mass planets or planetary cores undergo rapid inwards migration and are lost to the central star. However,…
The observed distribution of radii for exoplanets shows a bimodal form that can be explained by mass-loss from planetary atmospheres due to high energy radiation emitted by their host stars. The location of the minimum of this radius…