Related papers: TRAPPIST-1 d: Exo-Venus, Exo-Earth or Exo-Dead?
TRAPPIST-1 e is one of a few habitable zone exoplanets that is amenable to characterization in the near term. In this study our motivations are both scientific and technical. Our technical goal is to establish a multimodel sparse sampled…
One popular view of Venus' climate history describes a world that has spent much of its life with surface liquid water, plate tectonics, and a stable temperate climate. Part of the basis for this optimistic scenario is the high deuterium to…
The study of planetary habitability beyond Earth remains a central and challenging project in planetary science. Analysis of large volumes of planetary data from space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, and JWST is directed ultimately at…
The TRAPPIST-1 system is a priority target for terrestrial exoplanet characterization. TRAPPIST-1e, residing in the habitable zone, will be observed during the JWST GTO Program. Here, we assess the prospects of differentiating between…
Understanding the physical characteristics of Venus, including its atmosphere, interior, and its evolutionary pathway with respect to Earth, remains a vital component for terrestrial planet evolution models and the emergence and/or decline…
The TRAPPIST-1 system has 7 known terrestrial planets arranged compactly in a mean motion resonant chain around an ultra-cool central star, some within the estimated habitable zone. Given their short orbital periods of just a few days, it…
The current goals of the astrobiology community are focused on developing a framework for the detection of biosignatures, or evidence thereof, on objects inside and outside of our solar system. A fundamental aspect of understanding the…
The planetary mass and radius sensitivity of exoplanet discovery capabilities has reached into the terrestrial regime. The focus of such investigations is to search within the Habitable Zone where a modern Earth-like atmosphere may be a…
The recently discovered transiting super-Earth LP 890-9 c is potentially one of the best rocky exoplanets for atmospheric characterization. Orbiting an ultracool M-dwarf at the inner edge of the habitable zone, LP 890-9 c offers a new…
The TRAPPIST-1 system offers the opportunity to characterize terrestrial, potentially habitable planets orbiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star. We performed a four-orbit reconnaissance with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph onboard…
Ancient Venus and Earth may have been similar in crucial ways for the development of life, such as liquid water oceans, land-ocean interfaces, favorable chemical ingredients and energy pathways. If life ever developed on, or was transported…
The key goals of the astrobiology community are to identify environments beyond Earth that may be habitable, and to search for signs of life in those environments. A fundamental aspect of understanding the limits of habitable environments…
One of the most significant goals of modern science is establishing whether life exists around other suns. The most direct path towards its achievement is the detection and atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets with…
The TRAPPIST-1 planetary system is a favorable target for the atmospheric characterization of temperate earth-sized exoplanets by means of transmission spectroscopy with the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). A possible obstacle…
The inner edge of the classical habitable zone is often defined by the critical flux needed to trigger the runaway greenhouse instability. This 1D notion of a critical flux, however, may not be so relevant for inhomogeneously irradiated…
Recently, phosphine was discovered in the atmosphere of Venus as a potential biosignature. This raises the question: if Venusian life exists, could it be related to terrestrial life? Based on the known rate of meteoroid impacts on Earth, we…
We study the dynamical evolution of the TRAPPIST-1 system under the influence of orbital circularization through tidal interaction with the central star. We find that systems with parameters close to the observed one evolve into a state…
Discoveries of terrestrial, Earth-sized exoplanets that lie within the habitable zone (HZ) of their host stars continue to occur at increasing rates. Transit spectroscopy can potentially enable the detection of molecular signatures from…
The potential detection of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus has reignited interest in the possibility of life aloft in this environment. If the cloud decks of Venus are indeed an abode of life, it should reside in the "habitable zone"…
The TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI) is a community project that aims to quantify how dfferences in general circulation models (GCMs) could impact the climate prediction for TRAPPIST-1e and, subsequently its…