Related papers: A nomenclature for individual exocomets
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The field of exoplanetary science has experienced a recent surge of new systems that is largely due to the precision photometry provided by the Kepler mission. The latest discoveries have included compact planetary systems in which the…
Determining the orbital eccentricity of an extrasolar planet is critically important for understanding the system's dynamical environment and history. However, eccentricity is often poorly determined or entirely mischaracterized due to poor…
Exoplanet surface imaging, cartography and the search for exolife are the next frontiers of planetology and astrophysics. Here we present an over-view of ideas and techniques to resolve albedo features on exoplanetary surfaces. Albedo maps…
The prevailing assumption is that all exoplanets are made of ordinary matter. However, we propose an unconventional possibility that some exoplanets could be made of dark matter, which we name "dark exoplanets." In this paper, we explore…
The ExoClock project is an open platform aiming to monitor exoplanets by integrating observations from space and ground based telescopes. This study presents an updated catalogue of 620 exoplanet ephemerides, integrating 30000 measurements…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
The presence of rings and moons around exoplanets is likely to be one of the next great discoveries in exoplanet research. Using theories developed for the Solar System, we explore the possibility of coupled ring-moon cycles around…
We propose several descriptive measures to characterize the arrangements of planetary masses, periods, and mutual inclinations within exoplanetary systems. These measures are based in complexity theory and capture the global, system-level…
The last decade has seen a revolution in the field of asteroseismology - the study of stellar pulsations. It has become a powerful method to precisely characterise exoplanet host stars, and as a consequence also the exoplanets themselves.…
Kepler, K2, TESS, and similar time-domain photometric projects, while designed with exoplanet detection in mind, are also well-suited projects for searches for large artificial structures orbiting other stars in the Galaxy. An effort to…
The known extrasolar planets exhibit many interesting and surprising features--extremely short-period orbits, high-eccentricity orbits, mean-motion and secular resonances, etc.--and have dramatically expanded our appreciation of the…
The Exoplanet Exploration Program (ExEP) is chartered by the NASA Astrophysics Division to carry out science, research, and technology tasks that advance NASA's science goals for exoplanets. The ExEP Science Gap List is a compilation of…
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…
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…
Future remote sensing of exoplanets will be enhanced by a thorough investigation of our solar system Ice Giants (Neptune-size planets). What can the configuration of the magnetic field tell us (remotely) about the interior, and what…
The basic geometry of the Solar System -- the shapes, spacings, and orientations of the planetary orbits -- has long been a subject of fascination as well as inspiration for planet formation theories. For exoplanetary systems, those same…
A general model is proposed to explain the relation between the extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) detected until June 2008 and the main characteristics of their host stars through statistical techniques. The main goal is to establish a…
We'll examine plate tectonics on Earth -- its features and forces -- and examine some concepts that may allow astronomers to ask useful questions regarding numeric models that putatively predict tectonic activity. But exo-planetologists…
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…