Related papers: Atmospheres of Solar System Moons and Pluto
Interstellar material surrounding an extrasolar planetary system interacts with the stellar wind to form the stellar astrosphere, and regulates the properties of the interplanetary medium and cosmic ray fluxes throughout the system.…
Earth's atmosphere has evolved as volatile species cycle between the atmosphere, ocean, biomass and the solid Earth. The geochemical, biological and astrophysical processes that control atmospheric evolution are reviewed from an "Earth…
We review the interior structure and evolution of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and giant exoplanets with particular emphasis on constraining their global composition. Compared to the first edition of this review, we provide a new…
Detailed characterization of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere provides the best hope for distinguishing the makeup of its outer layers, and the only hope for understanding the interplay between initial composition, chemistry, dynamics &…
Clouds form on extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs where lightning could occur. Lightning is a tracer of atmospheric convection, cloud formation and ionization processes as known from the Solar System, and may be significant for the…
Understanding planetary habitability is one of the major challenges of the current scientific era, particularly given the discovery of a large and diverse terrestrial exoplanet population. Discerning the primary factors that contribute to…
Until recently, infrared observations of exoplanetary atmospheres have typically been interpreted using models that assumed solar elemental abundances. With the chemical composition fixed, attempts have been made to classify hot Jupiter…
Titan is one of the more distinctive bodies in our solar system. In addition to being the largest of Saturn's moons, its thick atmosphere gene-rates interest because of its similarities and differences with Earth [1, 2]. Like Earth, Titan's…
Relatively long-period nonsynchronized planets---such as warm Jupiters---potentially retain the primordial rotation, eccentricity, and obliquity that might encapsulate information on planetary climate and formation processes. To date, there…
Interior models of Jupiter and Saturn are calculated and compared in the framework of the three-layer assumption, which rely on the perception that both planets consist of three globally homogeneous regions: a dense core, a metallic…
Stellar occultations and transits occur when a planetary body passes in front of a star (including our Sun). For objects with an atmosphere, refraction plays an essential role to explain the drops of flux and the aureoles observed during…
I review the major open science questions in exoplanet atmospheres. These are mainly focused in the areas of understanding atmospheric physics, the atmosphere as a window into other realms of planetary physics, and the atmosphere is a…
Numerous solar system atmospheres possess aerosols including the characteristic organic hazes of Titan and Pluto. Haze particles substantially impact atmospheric temperatures structures and may provide organic material to the surface of a…
Atmospheric electrification is not a purely terrestrial phenomenon: all Solar System planetary atmospheres become slightly electrified by cosmic ray ionisation. There is evidence for lightning on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and it…
With the availability of considerably more data, we revisit the question of how special our Solar System is, compared to observed exoplanetary systems. To this goal, we employ a mathematical transformation that allows for a meaningful,…
The weather layers of the gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, comprise the shallow atmospheric layers that are influenced energetically by a combination of incoming solar radiation and localised latent heating of condensates, as well as…
The processes occurring in the solar atmosphere are diverse and depend on many important factors. For example, from magnetic fields, their sudden changes, from emissions of substance from the depths of the Sun, distribution of shock waves…
The importance of understanding the current and historical galactic environments of cool stars is discussed. The penetration of interstellar gas into a stellar astrosphere is a function of the interaction of the star with the interstellar…
It is now understood that the accretion of terrestrial planets naturally involves giant collisions, the moon-forming impact being a well known example. In the aftermath of such collisions the surface of the surviving planet is very hot and…
Observations of the Jovian upper atmosphere at high latitudes in the UV, IR and mm/sub-mm all indicate that the chemical distributions and thermal structure are broadly influenced by auroral particle precipitations. Mid-IR and UV…