Related papers: Quantitative Criteria for Defining Planets
What is habitability? Can we quantify it? What do we mean under the term habitable or potentially habitable planet? With estimates of the number of planets in our Galaxy alone running into billions, possibly a number greater than the number…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
The interpretation of the origin of observed exoplanets is usually done only qualitatively due to uncertainties of key parameters in planet formation models. To allow a quantitative methodology which traces back in time to the planet birth…
Provided that sufficient resources are deployed, we can look forward to an extraordinary future in which we will characterize potentially habitable planets. Until now, we have had to base interpretations of observations on habitability…
The difference in formation process between binary stars and planetary systems is reflected in their composition as well as their orbital architecture, particularly orbital eccentricity as a function of orbital period. It is suggested here…
Revealing the mechanisms shaping the architecture of planetary systems is crucial for our understanding of their formation and evolution. In this context, it has been recently proposed that stellar clustering might be the key in shaping the…
With the discovery of now more than 500 exoplanets, we present a statistical analysis of the planetary orbital periods and their relationship to the rotation periods of their parent stars. We test whether the structure of planetary orbits,…
The past 15 years have brought about a revolution in our understanding of our Solar System and other planetary systems. During this time, discoveries include the first Kuiper Belt Objects, the first brown dwarfs, and the first extra-solar…
Understanding the dominant brown dwarf and giant planet formation processes, and finding out whether these processes rely on completely different mechanisms or share common channels represents one of the major challenges of astronomy and…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
One of the most important developments in exoplanet science in the past decade is the discovery of multi-planet systems with sub-Neptune-sized planets interior to 1~AU. This chapter explores the architectures of these planetary systems,…
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…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
Two types of stability boundaries exist for any planetary system consisting of one star and two planets. Lagrange stability requires that the planets remain bound to the star, conserves the ordering of the distance from the star, and limits…
When a star is described as a spectral class G2V, we know its approximate mass, temperature, age, and size. At more than 5,700 exoplanets discovered, it is a natural developmental step to establish a classification for them, such as for…
With the growing number of discovered exoplanets, the Gaia concept finds its second wind. The Gaia concept defines that the biosphere of an inhabited planet regulates a planetary climate through feedback loops such that the planet remains…
Recently, Odrzywolek and Rafelski (arXiv:1612.03556) have found three distinct categories of exoplanets, when they are classified based on density. We first carry out a similar classification of exoplanets according to their density using…
This chapter reviews the definition of exoplanets and of brown dwarfs. Emphasis is given to the separation of these two populations. A traditional view is to declare {\guillemotleft} planet {\guillemotright} objects with a mass < 13 M Jup…
The search for habitable exoplanets and life beyond the Solar System is one of the most compelling scientific opportunities of our time. Nevertheless, the high cost of building facilities that can address this topic and the keen public…
The new discoveries of circumbinary planetary systems shed light on the understanding of planetary system formation. Learning the architectural properties of these systems is essential for constraining the different formation mechanisms. We…