Related papers: Dynamical Stability and Habitability in the HD 207…
The GJ 581 planetary system was already known to harbour three planets, including two super-Earths planets which straddle its habitable zone. We report here the detection of an additional planet -- GJ 581e -- with a minimum mass of 1.9…
We simulate the coupled stellar and tidal evolution of short-period binary stars (orbital period $P_{orb} \lsim$8 days) to investigate the orbital oscillations, instellation cycles, and orbital stability of circumbinary planets (CBPs). We…
Stability is one of the most fundamental aspects regarding planetary systems. It plays an important role in our understanding on the formation channel of the planetary systems, as well as their habitability. Many approaches have been…
Of the hundreds of exoplanets discovered using the radial velocity technique, many are orbiting close to their host stars with periods less than 10 days. One of these, HD 63454, is a young active K dwarf which hosts a Jovian planet in a…
The search for habitable planets has revealed many planets that can vary greatly from an Earth analog environment. These include highly eccentric orbits, giant planets, different bulk densities, relatively active stars, and evolved stars.…
Hitherto, six P-type planets are found around five binary systems, i.e. Kepler-16 b, 34 b, 35 b, 38 b, 47 b, c, which are all Neptune or Jupiter-like planets. The stability of planets and the habitable zones are influenced by the…
Stability of planetary orbits around the GJ 832 star system, which contains inner (GJ 832c) and outer (GJ 832b) planets, is investigated numerically and a detailed phase-space analysis is performed. A special emphasis is given to the…
Terrestrial planets are more likely to be detected if they orbit M dwarfs due to the favorable planet/star size and mass ratios. However, M dwarf habitable zones are significantly closer to the star than the one around our Sun, which leads…
Obliquity variability could play an important role in the climate and habitability of a planet. Orbital modulations caused by planetary companions and the planet's spin axis precession due to the torque from the host star may lead to…
The habitable zone (HZ) is the circumstellar region where a planet can sustain surface liquid water. Searching for terrestrial planets in the HZ of nearby stars is the stated goal of ongoing and planned extrasolar planet surveys. Previous…
We report on the stability of hypothetical Super-Earths in the habitable zone of known multi-planetary systems. Most of them have not yet been studied in detail concerning the existence of additional low-mass planets. The new N-body code…
Many exoplanets are discovered in binary star systems in internal or in circumbinary orbits. Whether the planet can be habitable or not depends on the possibility to maintain liquid water on its surface, and therefore on the luminosity of…
With 16-month Kepler data, 14 long-period (40 d - 265 d) eclipsing binaries on highly eccentric orbits (minimum e between 0.5 and 0.85) are recognized from their closely separated primary and secondary eclipses (\Delta t_I,II = 3 d - 10 d).…
By now, observations of exoplanets have found more than 50 binary star systems hosting 71 planets. We expect these numbers to increase as more than 70% of the main sequence stars in the solar neighborhood are members of binary or multiple…
Approximately 60 percent of all stars in the solar neighbourhood (up to 80 percent in our Milky Way) are members of binary or multiple star systems. This fact led to the speculations that many more planets may exist in binary systems than…
Long time coverage and high radial velocity precision have allowed for the discovery of additional objects in known planetary systems. Many of the extrasolar planets detected have highly eccentric orbits, which raises the question of how…
We present precision radial velocity (RV) data sets from Keck-HIRES and from Lick Observatory's new Automated Planet Finder Telescope and Levy Spectrometer on Mt. Hamilton that reveal a multiple-planet system orbiting the nearby, slightly…
A stellar evolution computer model has been used to determine changes in the luminosity L and effective temperature T(e) of single stars during their time on the main sequence. The range of stellar masses investigated was from 0.5 to 1.5…
Contrary to the orthodox picture of planet formation resulting in a neatly ordered Solar System, exoplanet systems exhibit highly diverse orbits: short and long periods, circular and eccentric, well- and misaligned, and even retrograde…
Planets in highly eccentric orbits form a class of objects not seen within our Solar System. The most extreme case known amongst these objects is the planet orbiting HD~20782, with an orbital period of 597~days and an eccentricity of 0.96.…