Related papers: Atmospheres of Solar System Moons and Pluto
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 statistics of extrasolar planetary systems indicate that the default mode of planet formation generates planets with orbital periods shorter than 100 days, and masses substantially exceeding that of the Earth. When viewed in this…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
Understanding the possible climatic conditions on rocky extrasolar planets, and thereby their potential habitability, is one of the major subjects of exoplanet research. Determining how the climate, as well as potential atmospheric…
A wide variety of solar system bodies are now known to radiate in the soft x-ray energy (<5 keV) regime. These include planets (Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars): bodies having thick atmospheres, with or without intrinsic magnetic field;…
Studies of the atmospheres of hot Jupiters reveal a diversity of atmospheric composition and haze properties. Similar studies on individual smaller, temperate planets are rare due to the inherent difficulty of the observations and also to…
We identify a previously overlooked invariant governing planetary surface temperatures, expressed in terms of only two observables: solar irradiance and Bond albedo. The relation has universal applicability and accurately reproduces the…
Exoplanetary science is on the verge of an unprecedented revolution. The thousands of exoplanets discovered over the past decade have most recently been supplemented by discoveries of potentially habitable planets around nearby low-mass…
Rocky planets are common around other stars, but their atmospheric properties remain largely unconstrained. Thanks to a wealth of recent planet discoveries and upcoming advances in observing capability, we are poised to characterize the…
The ancestor philosophers' dream of thousands of new worlds is finally realised: about 3500 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the neighborhood of our Sun. Most of them are very different from those we used to know in our Solar…
The galactic environment of the Sun varies over short timescales as the Sun and interstellar clouds travel through space. Small variations in the dynamics, ionization, density, and magnetic field strength of the interstellar medium (ISM)…
Terrestrial-like exoplanets may obtain atmospheres from three primary sources: Capture of nebular gases, degassing during accretion, and degassing from subsequent tectonic activity. Here we model degassing during accretion to estimate the…
A classification system is presented for characterizing the composition of planetary bodies. From mass-radius and mass-density relationships, planets may be broadly grouped into five composition classes identified as: Gas Giant, Rock-Ice…
More than two dozen short-period Jupiter-mass gas giant planets have been discovered around nearby solar-type stars in recent years, several of which undergo transits, making them ideal for the detection and characterization of their…
The outgassing signatures of Io, Europa, Enceladus, Triton, and Io-like exomoons are the focus of this review chapter. The rocky volcanic world of Io is unique in our Solar System, with plumes reaching to hundreds of kilometres in altitude.…
To understand the role that planet formation history has on the observable atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) we have produced a population of astrochemically evolving protoplanetary disks. Based on the parameters used in a…
Clouds are an integral part of planetary atmospheres, with most planets hosting clouds. The understanding of not only the formation, but also the composition of clouds is crucial to the understanding of future observations. As observations…
Over the last twenty years, the search for extrasolar planets revealed us the rich diversity of the outcomes of the formation and evolution of planetary systems. In order to fully understand how these extrasolar planets came to be, however,…
The New Horizons spacecraft will achieve a wide range of measurement objectives at the Pluto system, including color and panchromatic maps, 1.25-2.50 micron spectral images for studying surface compositions, and measurements of Pluto's…
Earth's climate is influenced by over a dozen feedbacks, but only three dominate its long-term climate behavior. Models of the exoplanet habitable zone (HZ) assume that this is similar for other Earth-like planets. We used dynamical…