Related papers: Exoplanet Mineralogy
The distribution of the orbits of close-in exoplanets shows evidence for on-going removal and destruction by tides. Tides raised on a planet's host star cause the planet's orbit to decay, even after the orbital eccentricity has dropped to…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
Exoplanets are now being discovered in profusion. However, to understand their character requires spectral models and data. These elements of remote sensing can yield temperatures, compositions, and even weather patterns, but only if…
We provide estimates of volcanism versus time for planets with Earth-like composition and masses from 0.25 to 25 times Earth, as a step toward predicting atmospheric mass on extrasolar rocky planets. Volcanism requires melting of the…
A planetary mass scale and a system of composition codes are presented for describing the geophysical characteristics of exoplanets and Solar System planets, dwarf planets, and spherical moons. The composition classes characterize the rock,…
In this work, we develop a rocky planet interior model and use it to investigate the evolution of catastrophically evaporating rocky exoplanets. These planets, detected through the dust tails produced by evaporative outflows from their…
The quest for atmospheric spectral signatures that may witness biological activity in exoplanets is focused on rocky planets. The best targets for future, challenging spectroscopic observations will be selected among potentially habitable…
The probability of the detection of Earth-like exoplanets may increase in the near future after the launch of the space missions using the transit photometry as observation method. By using this technique only the semi-major axis of the…
This chapter reviews the current state of observational and theoretical efforts in the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres, with a focus on developments enabled through the Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR)…
The number of exoplanet detections continues to grow following the development of better instruments and missions. Key steps for the understanding of these worlds comes from their characterization and its statistical studies. We explore the…
Recently discovered exoplanets on close-in orbits should have surface temperatures of 100's to 1000's of K. They are likely tidally locked and synchronously rotating around their parent stars and, if an atmosphere is absent, have surface…
Gas-giant exoplanets are test cases for theories of planet formation as their atmospheres are proposed to carry signatures of their formation within the protoplanetary disk. The metallicity and C/O are key diagnostics, allowing to…
The prospects for finding transiting exoplanets in the range of a few to 20 Earth masses is growing rapidly with both ground-based and spaced-based efforts. We describe a publicly available computer code to compute and quantify the…
The discovery of habitable exoplanets has long been a heated topic in astronomy. Traditional methods for exoplanet identification include the wobble method, direct imaging, gravitational microlensing, etc., which not only require a…
Exoplanet interior modelling usually makes the assumption that the elemental abundances of a planet are identical to those of its host star. Host stellar abundances are good proxies of planetary abundances, but only for refractory elements.…
Approximately half of the extrasolar planets (exoplanets) with radii less than four Earth radii are in orbits with short periods. Despite their sheer abundance, the compositions of such planets are largely unknown. The available evidence…
Rocky planets in our Solar System, namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Moon, which is generally added to this group due to its geological complexity, possess a solid surface and share a common structure divided into major layers,…
Features in the distribution of exoplanet parameters by period demonstrate that the distribution of planet parameters is rich with information that can provide essential guidance to understanding planet histories. Structure has been found…
This paper provides a brief summary and overview of the astrochemistry associated with the formation of stars and planets. It is aimed at new researchers in the field to enable them to obtain a quick overview of the landscape and key…
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 -…