Related papers: Soot Planets instead of Water Worlds

We explore terrestrial planet formation with a focus on the supply of solid-state organics as the main source of volatile carbon. For the water-poor Earth, the water ice line, or ice sublimation front, within the planet-forming disk has…

Planet formation models suggest that the small exoplanets that migrate from beyond the snowline of the protoplanetary disk likely contain water-ice-rich cores ($\sim 50\%$ by mass), also known as the water worlds. While the observed radius…

The terrestrial and gas-giant planets in our solar system may represent some prototypes for planets around other stars; the exoplanets because most stars have similar overall elemental abundances as our sun. The solar system planets…

The bulk composition of an exoplanet is commonly inferred from its average density. For small planets, however, the average density is not unique within the range of compositions. Variations of a number of important planetary…

Many habitable zone exoplanets are expected to form with water mass fractions higher than that of the Earth. For rocky exoplanets with 10-1000x Earth's H2O but without H2, we model the multi-Gyr evolution of ocean temperature and chemistry,…

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…

We suggest that some extrasolar planets <~ 60 Earth masses will form substantially from silicon carbide and other carbon compounds. Pulsar planets and low-mass white dwarf planets are especially good candidate members of this new class of…

Recent claims of biosignature gases in sub-Neptune atmospheres have renewed interest in water-rich sub-Neptunes with surface oceans, often referred to as Hycean planets. These planets are hypothesized to form beyond the snow line, accreting…

The discovery of thousands of exoplanets and the emergence of telescopes capable of exoplanet atmospheric characterization have intensified the search for habitable worlds. Due to selection biases, many exoplanets under study are planets…

Recent detection of exoplanets with Earth-like insolation attracts growing interest in how common Earth-like aqua planets are beyond the solar system. While terrestrial planets are often assumed to capture icy or water-rich planetesimals, a…

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,…

Clouds also form in atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars than our Sun, in so-called extrasolar planets or exoplanets. Exoplanet atmospheres can be chemically extremely rich. Exoplanet clouds are therefor made of a mix of materials…

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…

Data suggest that most rocky exoplanets with orbital period $p$ $<$ 100 d ("hot" rocky exoplanets) formed as gas-rich sub-Neptunes that subsequently lost most of their envelopes, but whether these rocky exoplanets still have atmospheres is…

Planets less massive than about 10 MEarth are expected to have no massive H-He atmosphere and a cometary composition (50% rocks, 50% water, by mass) provided they formed beyond the snowline of protoplanetary disks. Due to inward migration,…

The atmosphere of a terrestrial planet that is replenished with secondary gases should have accumulated hydrogen-rich gas from its protoplanetary disk. Although a giant impact blows off a large fraction of the primordial atmosphere of a…

Several studies, observational and theoretical, suggest that planetary systems with only rocky planets should be the most common in the Universe. We study the diversity of planetary systems that might form around Sun-like stars in low-mass…

Models of planet formation have shown that giant planets have a large impact on the number, masses and orbits of terrestrial planets that form. In addition, they play an important role in delivering volatiles from material that formed…

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…

Solar and extrasolar planets are the subject of numerous studies aiming to determine their chemical composition and internal structure. In the case of extrasolar planets, the composition is important as it partly governs their potential…