Related papers: Trojan Exoplanets
From wispy gas giants on the verge of disruption to tiny rocky bodies already falling apart, short-period exoplanets pose a severe puzzle to theories of planet formation and orbital evolution. By far most of the planets known beyond the…
As a direct result of ongoing efforts to detect more exoplanetary systems, an ever-increasing number of multiple-planet systems are being announced. But how many of these systems are truly what they seem? In many cases, such systems are…
Observational surveys for extrasolar planets probe the diverse outcomes of planet formation and evolution. These surveys measure the frequency of planets with different masses, sizes, orbital characteristics, and host star properties. Small…
What kind of environment may exist on terrestrial planets around other stars? In spite of the lack of direct observations, it may not be premature to speculate on exoplanetary climates, for instance to optimize future telescopic…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
Exoplanets around different types of stars provide a window into the diverse environments in which planets form. This chapter describes the observed relations between exoplanet populations and stellar properties and how they connect to…
Over 300 extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been detected orbiting nearby stars. We now hope to conduct a census of all planets around nearby stars and to characterize their atmospheres and surfaces with spectroscopy. Rocky planets within…
The field of exoplanets is quickly expanding from just the detection of new planets and the measurement of their most basic parameters, such as mass, radius and orbital configuration, to the first measurements of their atmospheric…
We have had several talks recently reviewing 11 years of exoplanet discoveries through radial velocity variations, or from transits, or from microlensing. More than 200 exoplanets have been found, including some around pulsars that we do…
There are many competing theories and models describing the formation, migration and evolution of exoplanet systems. As both the precision with which we can characterize exoplanets and their host stars, and the number of systems for which…
As the number of detected extrasolar planets increases, exoplanet databases become a valuable resource, confirming some details about planetary formation, but also challenging our theories with new unexpected properties.
Exomoons orbiting terrestrial or super-terrestrial exoplanets have not yet been discovered; their possible existence and properties are therefore still an unresolved question. Here we explore the collisional formation of exomoons through…
At the dawn of the first discovery of exoplanets orbiting sun-like stars in the mid-1990s, few believed that observations of exoplanet atmospheres would ever be possible. After the 2002 Hubble Space Telescope detection of a transiting…
Trojan asteroids are minor planets that share the orbit of a planet about the Sun and librate around the L4 or L5 Lagrangian points of stability. They are important solar-system fossils because they carry information on early Solar System…
We have recently hit the milestone of 5,000 exoplanets discovered. In stark contrast with the Solar System, most of the exoplanets we know to date orbit extremely close to their host stars, causing them to lose copious amounts of gas…
It is possible to learn a great deal about exoplanet atmospheres even when we cannot spatially resolve the planets from their host stars. In this chapter, we overview the basic techniques used to characterize transiting exoplanets -…
Most exoplanets have been discovered via radial velocity studies, which are inherently insensitive to orbital inclination. Interferometric observations will show evidence of a stellar companion if it sufficiently bright, regardless of the…
The terrestrial and gas-giant planets in our solar system may represent some prototypes for planets around other stars; the exoplanets because most stars have similar overall elemental abundances as our sun. The solar system planets…
Understanding the consequences of the gravitational interaction between a star and a planet is fundamental to the study of exoplanets. The solution of the two-body problem shows that the planet moves in an elliptical path around the star…
Free-floating planets are a new class of planets recently discovered. These planets don't orbit within stellar systems, instead living a nomadic life within the galaxy. How such objects formed remains elusive. Numerous works have explored…