Related papers: Observations of Exocomets
Exoplanets, short for `extra solar planets', are planets outside our solar system. They are objects with masses less than around 15 Jupiter-masses that orbit stars other than the Sun. They are small enough so they can not burn deuterium in…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets more than 20 years ago, there has been an increasing need for photometric and spectroscopic models to characterize these systems. While imaging has been used extensively for Solar System bodies…
In this chapter we review our knowledge of our galaxy's cometary population outside our Oort Cloud - exocomets and Interstellar Objects (ISOs). We start with a brief overview of planetary system formation, viewed as a general process around…
The discovery of over 200 extrasolar planets with the radial velocity (RV) technique has revealed that many giant planets have large eccentricities, in striking contrast with most of the planets in the solar system and prior theories of…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…
Tremendous progress in the science of extrasolar planets has been achieved since the discovery of a Jupiter orbiting the nearby Sun-like star 51 Pegasi in 1995. Theoretical models have now reached enough maturity to predict the…
Comets have been invoked in numerous studies as a potentially important source of dust and gas around stars, but none has studied the thermo-physical evolution, out-gassing rate, and dust ejection of these objects in such stellar systems.…
The small bodies in the Kuiper Belt region of the distant Solar System are leftovers from planet formation. Their orbital distribution today tells us about how giant planets migrated, while their surface properties, shapes, and sizes tell…
The study of extrasolar planets has rapidly expanded to encompass the search for new planets, measurements of sizes and masses, models of planetary interiors, planetary demographics and occurrence frequencies, the characterization of…
Comets are important "eyewitnesses" of Solar System formation and evolution. Important tests to determine the chemical composition and to study the physical processes in cometary nuclei and coma need data in the UV range of the…
The search for extrasolar planets is strongly motivated by the goal of characterizing how frequent habitable worlds and life may be within the Galaxy. Whilst much effort has been spent on searching for Earth-like planets, large moons may…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
Studies of future space- and ground-based exoplanet surveys often rely on models of planetary systems to simulate instrument response, estimate scientific yields, perform trade analyses, and study efficient observation strategies. Until…
Rings around giant exoplanets (hereafter 'exorings') are still a missing planetary phenomenon among the vast number of discovered planets. Despite the fact there exist a large number of methods for identifying and characterizing these…
We performed numerical simulations of stellar occultations by extra-solar cometary tails. We find that extra-solar comets can be detected by the apparent photometric variations of the central stars. In most cases, the light curve shows a…
The characteristics of irradiated solar system planetary atmospheres have been studied for decades, consequently modern planetary science benefits from an exhaustive body of ground- and space-based data. The study of extrasolar planetary…
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…
We are still in the early days of exoplanet discovery. Astronomers are beginning to model the atmospheres and interiors of exoplanets and have developed a deeper understanding of processes of planet formation and evolution. However, we have…
This chapter reviews various methods of detecting planetary companions to stars from an observational perspective, focusing on radial velocities, astrometry, direct imaging, transits, and gravitational microlensing. For each method, this…