Related papers: Can Jupiter's atmospheric metallicity be different…
Jupiter's enhancement in nitrogen relative to hydrogen when compared to the Sun has been interpreted as evidence that its early formation occurred beyond the N$_{2}$ snowline ($\sim$ 20-40 AU). However, the rapid growth necessary to form…
The observed low densities of gas giant planets with a high equilibrium temperature can be simulated in models when a fraction of the surface radiation is deposited deeper in the interior. Meanwhile migration theories suggest that hot…
The temperature structure of a giant planet was traditionally thought to be an adiabat assuming convective mixing homogenizes entropy. The only in-situ measurement made by the Galileo Probe detected a near-adiabatic temperature structure…
The planet GJ 1214b is the second known super-Earth with a measured mass and radius. Orbiting a quiet M-star, it receives considerably less mass-loss driving X-ray and UV radiation than CoRoT-7b, so that the interior may be quite dissimilar…
We examine the spectra and infrared colors of the cool methane-dominated atmospheres at Teff < 1400 K expected for young gas giant planets. We couple these spectral calculations to an updated version of the Marley et al. (2007) giant planet…
Recent observations, including those by JWST, suggest that the atmospheres of many gas giant exoplanets have super-stellar metallicity that is anti-correlated with planetary mass. Several studies suggest that the super-stellar metallicity…
The inflated radii of giant short-period extrasolar planets collectively indicate that the interiors of hot Jupiters are heated by some anomalous energy dissipation mechanism. Although a variety of physical processes have been proposed to…
Atmospheric chemical abundances of giant planets lead to important constraints on planetary formation and migration. Studies have shown that giant planets that migrate through the protoplanetary disk can accrete substantial amounts of…
Oxygen (O) and carbon (C) have been inferred recently to be subsolar in abundance from spectra of the atmosphere of the transiting hot Jupiter HD 189733b. Yet, the mass and radius of the planet coupled with structure models indicate a…
Observations of ultra-hot Jupiters offer an unprecedented opportunity to study the physics of some of the most extreme planetary atmospheres known. With exceedingly high amounts of irradiation blasting their upper atmospheres, ultra-hot…
The extremely close proximity of hot Jupiters to their parent stars has dramatically affected both their atmospheres and interiors, inflating them to up to twice the radius of Jupiter. The physical mechanism responsible for this inflation…
Recently two groups used first-principles computer simulations to model Jupiter's interior. While both studies relied on the same simulation technique, density functional molecular dynamics, the groups derived very different conclusions. In…
Jupiter's atmosphere features a variety of clouds that are formed from the interplay of chemistry and atmospheric dynamics, from the deep red color of the Great Red Spot to the high altitude white ammonia clouds present in the zones (bright…
The origin of hot Jupiters -- gas giant exoplanets orbiting very close to their host stars -- is a long-standing puzzle. Planet formation theories suggest that such planets are unlikely to have formed in-situ but instead may have formed at…
Atmospheric compositions preserve the history of planet formation processes. Jupiter has the remarkable feature of being uniformly enriched in various elements compared to the Sun, including highly volatile elements such as nitrogen and…
Currently, the analysis of transmission spectra is the most successful technique to probe the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres. But the accuracy of these measurements is constrained by observational limitations and the…
We present calculations of the early stages of the formation of Jupiter via core nucleated accretion and gas capture. The core begins as a seed body of about 350 kilometers in radius and orbits in a swarm of planetesimals whose initial…
A primary objective of exoplanet atmosphere characterisation is to learn about planet formation and evolution, however, this is challenged by degeneracies. To determine whether differences in atmospheric composition can be reliably traced…
The thermal structure of planetary atmospheres is an essential input for predicting and retrieving the distribution of gases and aerosols, as well as the bulk chemical abundances. In the case of Jupiter, the temperature at a reference level…
The giant planets of our solar system possess envelopes consisting mainly of hydrogen and helium but are also significantly enriched in heavier elements relatively to our Sun. In order to better constrain how these heavy elements have been…