Related papers: Earth-like planets hosting systems: Architecture a…
In this work, we hunt for the best places to find exo-Earths in the currently known exoplanet population. While it is still unclear whether Jupiter had a beneficial or detrimental effect on the creation of the right environment for a…
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on…
In the near future we will have ground- and space-based telescopes that are designed to observe and characterize Earth-like planets. While attention is focused on exoplanets orbiting main sequence stars, more than 150 exoplanets have…
Despite the increase in observational data on exoplanets, the processes that lead to the formation of planets are still not well understood. But thanks to the high number of known exoplanets, it is now possible to look at them as a…
The compositions of stars and planets are connected, yet, the definition of "habitability" and the "habitable zone" only take into account the physical relationship between the star and planet. Planets, however, are made truly habitable by…
The goal of the Ariel space mission is to observe a large and diversified population of transiting planets around a range of host star types to collect information on their atmospheric composition. The planetary bulk and atmospheric…
In this work, we extensively investigate the terrestrial planetary formation for the inclined planetary systems (considering the OGLE-2006-BLG-109L system as prototype) in the late stage. In the simulations, we show that the occurrence of…
The key to understanding an extrasolar giant planet's spectrum--and hence its detectability and evolution--lies with its atmosphere. Now that direct observations of thermal emission from extrasolar giant planets are in hand, atmosphere…
Most Sun-like and higher-mass stars reside in systems that include one or more gravitationally bound stellar companions. These systems offer an important probe of planet formation in the most common stellar systems, while also providing key…
We detect a cold, terrestrial planet in a binary-star system using gravitational microlensing. The planet has low mass (2 Earth masses) and lies projected at $a_{\perp,ph}$ ~ 0.8 astronomical units (AU) from its host star, similar to the…
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…
Gas giant planets are far easier than terrestrial planets to detect around other stars, and are thought to form much more quickly than terrestrial planets. Thus, in systems with giant planets, the late stages of terrestrial planet formation…
Models of planet formation are mainly focused on the accretion and dynamical processes of the planets, neglecting their chemical composition. In this work, we calculate the condensation sequence of the different chemical elements for a…
The long-term habitability of Earth-like planets requires low orbital eccentricities. A secular perturbation from a distant stellar companion is a very important mechanism in exciting planetary eccentricities, as many of the extrasolar…
The questions of how planets form and how common Earth-like planets are can be addressed by measuring the distribution of exoplanet masses and orbital periods. We report the occurrence rate of close-in planets (with orbital periods less…
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…
Determining the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets is a complex problem that represents the next major step for the astrophysical community. The majority of current models treat these planets as homogeneous or contain heterogeneity that…
Among various techniques to search for extra-solar planets, microlensing has some unique characteristics. Contrary to all other methods which favour nearby objects, microlensing is sensitive to planets around stars at distances of several…
With the wealth of planets that have been discovered over the past $\sim$ 20 years, the field can broadly be divided into two regimes. For understanding broad occurrence and formation rates, large numbers of planets allow for population…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…