Related papers: Detecting Surface Liquid Water on Exoplanets
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) offers a unique opportunity to revolutionize our understanding of planetary formation and evolution. The goal of this Science Case Development Document (SCDD) is to investigate the physical and…
Liquid water is a critical component of habitability. However, the production and stability of surficial liquid water can be challenging on planets outside the Habitable Zone and devoid of adequate greenhouse warming. On such cold, icy…
Exoplanet science is booming. In 20 years our knowledge has expanded considerably, from the first discovery of a Hot Jupiter, to the detection of a large population of Neptunes and super-Earths, to the first steps toward the…
One of the promising methods to search for life on extra-solar planets (exoplanets) is to detect life's signatures in their atmospheres. Spectra of exoplanet atmospheres at the modest resolution needed to search for oxygen, carbon dioxide,…
Stable surface liquid water is a key indicator of exoplanet habitability. However, few approaches exist for directly detecting oceans on potentially Earth-like exoplanets. In most cases, specular reflection of host starlight from surface…
With the increasing number of directly imaged giant exoplanets the current atmosphere models are often not capable of fully explaining the spectra and luminosity of the sources. A particularly challenging component of the atmosphere models…
Planetary obliquity (axial tilt) plays an important role in regulating the climate evolution and habitability of water-covered planets. Despite the suspicion of large obliquities in several exoplanetary systems, this phenomenon remains hard…
Exoplanet habitability is traditionally assessed by comparing a planet's semi-major axis to the location of its host star's "habitable zone," the shell around a star for which Earth-like planets can possess liquid surface water. The Kepler…
Following the recommendations to NASA and ESA, the search for life on exoplanets will be a priority in the next decades. Two direct imaging space mission concepts are being developed: the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) and the Large…
Terrestrial exoplanets in the canonical habitable zone may have a variety of initial water fractions due to random volatile delivery by planetesimals. If the total planetary water complement is high, the entire surface may be covered in…
The search for extrasolar planets has already detected rocky planets and several planetary candidates with minimum masses that are consistent with rocky planets in the habitable zone of their host stars. A low-resolution spectrum in the…
Terrestrial exoplanets in habitable zones are ubiquitous. It is, however, unknown which have Earth-like or Venus-like climates. Distinguishing different planet-types is crucial for determining whether a planet could be habitable. We…
Modeling the detection of life has never been more opportune. With next generation space telescopes, like the currently developing Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) concept, we will begin to characterize rocky exoplanets potentially…
The habitability of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs is a key topic in the search for extraterrestrial life. The climates of these planets differ significantly from the Earth's due to their likely tidal locking, resulting in a…
We investigate how well the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) mission concept can detect habitable conditions on exoplanets through the presence of atmospheric water vapor as a proxy for surface oceans. We model the atmosphere of a…
Whereas the Solar System has Mars and Europa as the best candidates for finding fossil/extant life as we know it - based on complex carbon compounds and liquid water - the 263 (non-pulsar) planetary systems around other stars as known at 15…
Many planetary parameters impact the climate state of Earth-like exoplanets and could vary significantly from those on Earth. However, some of these parameters may be impossible to observe, causing ambiguity in determining exoplanet climate…
Determining the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets is a complex problem that represents the next major step for the astrophysical community. The majority of current models treat these planets as homogeneous or contain heterogeneity that…
An important evolutionary pathway for planetary atmospheres is escape to space, which has been studied on Earth and Mars for several decades and more recently in exoplanets. A particularly important regime is the hydrodynamic escape,…
Water and land surfaces on a planet interact with gases in the atmosphere and with radiation from the star. These interactions define the environments that prevail on the planet, some of which may be more amenable to prebiotic chemistry,…