Related papers: Atmospheric escape from exoplanets: recent observa…
Atmospheric escape of close-in exoplanets can be driven by high energy radiation from the host star. The planetary outflows interacting with the stellar wind may generate observable transit signals that depend on the strength of the stellar…
Hydrodynamic escape can strip the envelopes of close-in exoplanets, but most observations of atmospheric mass loss to date have been confined to planets orbiting K and M dwarfs. A growing body of detections of atmospheric escape from…
Planetary habitability is in part determined by the atmospheric evolution of a planet; one key component of such evolution is escape of heavy ions to space. Ion loss processes are sensitive to the plasma environment of the planet, dictated…
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,…
This article presents a review on the observations and theoretical modeling of the evaporation of extrasolar planets. The observations and the resulting constraints on the upper atmosphere (thermosphere and exosphere) of the "hot-Jupiters".…
Atmospheric escape is an important factor shaping the exoplanet population and hence drives our understanding of planet formation. Atmospheric escape from giant planets is driven primarily by the stellar X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet (EUV)…
The planetary effective surface temperature alone is insufficient to characterize exoplanet atmospheres and their stability or evolution. Considering the star-planet system as a whole is necessary, and a critical component of the system is…
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…
Interactions between the winds of stars and the magnetospheres and atmospheres of planets involve many processes, including the acceleration of particles, heating of upper atmospheres, and a diverse range of atmospheric loss processes.…
The atmospheres of exoplanets reveal all their properties beyond mass, radius, and orbit. Based on bulk densities, we know that exoplanets larger than 1.5 Earth radii must have gaseous envelopes, hence atmospheres. We discuss contemporary…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…
Here we describe the observations and the resulting constraints on the upper atmosphere (thermosphere and exosphere) of the "Hot-Jupiters". In particular, observations and theoretical modeling of Hot-Jupiter evaporation are described. The…
We review the field of exoplanetary biosignatures with a main focus upon atmospheric gas-phase species. Due to the paucity of data in Earth-like planetary atmospheres a common approach is to extrapolate knowledge from the Solar System and…
Clouds and hazes are commonplace in the atmospheres of solar system planets and are likely ubiquitous in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets as well. Clouds affect every aspect of a planetary atmosphere, from the transport of radiation,…
Exoplanet atmospheres are known to be vulnerable to mass loss through irradiation by stellar X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet emission. We investigate how this high-energy irradiation varies with time by combining an empirical relation…
The long-term retention of substantial atmospheres in close-in exoplanets presents a major challenge to classical hydrodynamic escape theory, which predicts rapid mass loss under intense stellar irradiation. In this work, we propose a fully…
Although transit spectroscopy is a powerful method for studying the composition, thermal properties and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres, only a few transiting terrestrial exoplanets will be close enough to allow significant transit…
Exoplanets orbiting M-dwarfs within habitable zones are exposed to stellar environments more extreme than that terrestrial planets experience in our Solar System, which can significantly impact the atmospheres of the exoplanets and affect…
Studying exoplanets with their parent stars is crucial to understand their population, formation and history. We review some of the key questions regarding their evolution with particular emphasis on giant gaseous exoplanets orbiting close…
Space weather is among the most powerful and least understood forces shaping planetary atmospheres. In our Solar System, we observe its effects directly: atmospheric escape, chemical disruption, and spectacular auroral displays. Yet for…