Related papers: Diversity of Exoplanets
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…
Sub-Neptune planets, with sizes and masses between those of Earth and Neptune, dominate the exoplanet population. Sub-Neptunes are expected to be the most diverse family of the exoplanet population, potentially including rocky gas dwarfs,…
Nearly 30 years after the discovery of the first exoplanet around a main sequence star, thousands of planets have now been confirmed. These discoveries have completely revolutionized our understanding of planetary systems, revealing types…
The characterization of exoplanets and their birth protoplanetary disks has enormously advanced in the last decade. Benefitting from that, our global understanding of the planet formation processes has been substantially improved. In this…
Today's most detailed characterization of exoplanet atmospheres is accessible via transit spectroscopy (TS). Detecting transiting exoplanets only yields their size, and it is thus standard to measure a planet's mass before moving towards…
Characterizing the atmospheres of extrasolar planets is the new frontier in exoplanetary science. The last two decades of exoplanet discoveries have revealed that exoplanets are very common and extremely diverse in their orbital and bulk…
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…
In recent years a paradigm shift has occurred in exoplanet science, wherein low-mass stars are increasingly viewed as a foundational pillar of the search for potentially habitable worlds in the solar neighborhood. However, the formation…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition and potential habitability of these objects. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their…
The hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the past two decades offer a new perspective on planetary structure. Instead of being the archetypal examples of planets, those of our Solar System are merely possible outcomes of…
Planetary systems that orbit white dwarf stars can be studied via spectroscopic observations of the stars themselves. Numerous white dwarfs are seen to have accreted mostly rocky minor planets, the remnants of which are present in the…
This whitepaper discusses the diversity of exoplanets that could be detected by future observations, so that comparative exoplanetology can be performed in the upcoming era of large space-based flagship missions. The primary focus will be…
The ultimate goal of exoplanetologists is to discover life outside our Earth and to fully understand our place in the Universe. Even though we have never been closer to attaining this goal, we still need to understand how and where the…
The discovery of large numbers of young low-mass stars and brown dwarfs over the last decade has made it possible to investigate star formation and early evolution in a previously unexplored mass regime. In this review, we begin by…
A first characterization of many exoplanets has recently been achieved by the observational determination of their radius. For some planets, a measurement of the luminosity has also been possible, with many more directly imaged planets…
This article summarizes a workshop held on March, 2014, on the potential of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to revolutionize our knowledge of the physical properties of exoplanets through transit observations. JWST's unique…
Exoplanet characterization is one of the main foci of current exoplanetary science. For super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, we mostly rely on mass and radius measurements, which allow to derive the body's mean density and give a rough estimate…
In this chapter we summarize current knowledge of the internal structure of giant planets. We concentrate on the importance of heavy elements and their role in determining the planetary composition and internal structure, in planet…
This Resource Letter gives an introduction to the main topics in exoplanet research. It is intended to serve as a guide to the field for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, both theoretical and experimental, and for workers…