Related papers: Extra-Solar Planets
The exoplanet detection is the most exciting and challenging field of astronomy. The discovery of many exoplanets has revolutionized our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems and has showed new ways to search for…
A space-based gravitational microlensing exoplanet survey will provide a statistical census of exoplanets with masses down to 0.1 Earth-masses and orbital separations ranging from 0.5AU to infinity. This includes analogs to all the Solar…
In this paper we discuss how we can read a planets spectrum to assess its habitability and search for the signatures of a biosphere. After a decade rich in giant exoplanet detections, observation techniques have now reached the ability to…
When a star is described as a spectral class G2V, we know that the star is similar to our Sun. We know its approximate mass, temperature, age, and size. When working with an extra-solar planet database, it is very useful to have a taxonomy…
With the discovery of the first transiting extrasolar planetary system back to 1999, a great number of projects started to hunt for other similar systems. Because of the incidence rate of such systems was unknown and the length of the…
Within the next few years, several instruments aiming at imaging extrasolar planets will see first light. In parallel, low mass planets are being searched around red dwarfs which offer more favorable conditions, both for radial velocity…
We develop an idealized dynamical model to predict the typical properties of outer extrasolar planetary systems, at radii beyond 5 AU. Our hypothesis is that dynamical evolution in outer planetary systems is controlled by a combination of…
Astrophysical research into exoplanets has delivered thousands of confirmed planets orbiting distant stars. These planets span a wide ranges of size and composition, with diversity also being the hallmark of system configurations, the great…
New discoveries of transiting extrasolar planets are reported weekly. Ground based surveys as well as space borne observatories like CoRoT and Kepler are responsible for filling the statistical voids of planets on distant stellar systems. I…
Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…
Studies of transiting extra-solar planets are of key importance for understanding the nature of planets outside our Solar System, because their densities can be determined, constraining of what the planets are made of. Using the data…
We show that a space-based gravitational microlensing survey for terrestrial extra-solar planets is feasible in the near future, and could provide a nearly complete picture of the properties of planetary systems in our Galaxy. We present…
Half the known extrasolar planets have orbital eccentricities in excess of 0.3. Such large eccentricities are surprising as it is thought that planets form in a protoplanetary disk on nearly circular orbits much like the current states of…
Since the first discovery of an extra-solar planet around a main-sequence star, in 1995, the number of detected exoplanets has increased enormously. Over the past two decades, observational instruments (both onboard and on ground-based…
The investigation of exoplanetary habitability is integral to advancing our knowledge of extraterrestrial life potential and detailing the environmental conditions of distant worlds. In this analysis, we explore the properties of exoplanets…
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…
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…
Super-Earths and sub-Neptunes represent the most common class of exoplanets discovered to date in our galaxy, yet they have no direct analogues in the Solar System. Since 2014, researchers within the NCCR PlanetS have made significant…
Microlensing offers a unique opportunity to probe exoplanets that are temperate and beyond the snow line, as small as Jovian satellites, at extragalactic distance, and even free floating exoplanets, regimes where the sensitivity of other…
The discovery of over 400 extrasolar planets allows us to statistically test our understanding of formation and dynamics of planetary systems via numerical simulations. Traditional N-body simulations of multiple-planet systems without gas…