Related papers: Water versus land on temperate rocky planets
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…
It is likely that unambiguous habitable zone terrestrial planets of unknown water content will soon be discovered. Water content helps determine surface land fraction, which influences planetary weathering behavior. This is important…
Many planets in the solar system and across the galaxy have hydrogen-rich atmospheres overlying more heavy element-rich interiors with which they interact for billions of years. Atmosphere-interior interactions are thus crucial to…
Nominally anhydrous minerals (NAMs) are the primary carriers of water in rocky planet mantles. Therefore, studying water solubilities of major NAMs in the mantle can help us estimate the water storage capacities of rocky planet mantles and…
Water worlds have been hypothesized as an alternative to photo-evaporation in order to explain the gap in the radius distribution of Kepler exoplanets. We explore water worlds within the framework of a joint mass-radius-period distribution…
Most our knowledge about rocky exoplanets is based on their measure of mass and radius. These two parameters are routinely measured and are used to categorise different populations of observed exoplanets. They are also tightly linked to the…
Understanding the chemical interactions between water and Mg-silicates or iron is essential to constrain the interiors of water-rich planets. Hydration effects have, however, been mostly neglected by the astrophysics community so far. As…
Small planets ($\sim$1--3.9 $\Rearth$) constitute more than half of the inventory of the 4000-plus exoplanets discovered so far. Smaller planets are sufficiently dense to be rocky, but those with radii larger than $\sim$1.6 $\Rearth$ are…
In contrast to the water-poor inner solar system planets, stochasticity during planetary formation and order of magnitude deviations in exoplanet volatile contents suggest that rocky worlds engulfed in thick volatile ice layers are the…
Rotation and orbital eccentricity both strongly influence planetary climate. Eccentricities can often be measured for exoplanets, but rotation rates are currently difficult or impossible to constrain. Here we examine how the combined…
A review of the results on the migration of celestial bodies in the Solar System and in some exoplanetary systems is presented. Some problems of planet accumulation and migration of planetesimals, small bodies and dust in the forming and…
According to the standard liquid-water definition, the Earth is only partially habitable. We reconsider planetary habitability in the framework of energy-balance models, the simplest seasonal models in physical climatology, to assess the…
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…
We study the prospects for life on planets with subsurface oceans, and find that a wide range of planets can exist in diverse habitats with ice envelopes of moderate thickness. We quantify the energy sources available to these worlds, the…
About 4000 exoplanets have been confirmed since the year of 1992, and for most of the planets, the main parameters that can be measured are planetary radius and mass. Based on these two parameters, surface gravity can be estimated. In this…
Cycling of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and interior of rocky planets can stabilize global climate and enable planetary surface temperatures above freezing over geologic time. However, variations in global carbon budget and…
We have shown in a recent study, using 3D climate simulations, that dayside land cover has a substantial impact on the climate of a synchronously rotating temperate rocky planet such as Proxima Centauri b. Building on that result, we…
Understanding the possible climatic conditions on rocky extrasolar planets, and thereby their potential habitability, is one of the major subjects of exoplanet research. Determining how the climate, as well as potential atmospheric…
Clouds are an integral part of planetary atmospheres, with most planets hosting clouds. The understanding of not only the formation, but also the composition of clouds is crucial to the understanding of future observations. As observations…
The habitability of a planet depends on various factors, such as delivery of water during the formation, the co-evolution of the interior and the atmosphere, as well as the stellar irradiation which changes in time. Since an unknown number…