Related papers: Terrestrial planetary dynamics: a view from U, Th …
Young terrestrial planets, when they are still embedded in a circumstellar disk, accumulate an atmosphere of nebula gas. The evolution and eventual evaporation of the protoplanetary disk affect the structure and dynamics of the planetary…
Water content and the internal evolution of terrestrial planets and icy bodies are closely linked. The distribution of water in planetary systems is controlled by the temperature structure in the protoplanetary disk and dynamics and…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
Planets that are embedded in the changing magnetic fields of their host stars can experience significant induction heating in their interiors caused by the planet's orbital motion. For induction heating to be substantial, the planetary…
Ultra-hot Jupiters, an extreme class of planets not found in our solar system, provide a unique window into atmospheric processes. The extreme temperature contrasts between their day- and night-sides pose a fundamental climate puzzle: how…
The inner edge of the classical habitable zone is often defined by the critical flux needed to trigger the runaway greenhouse instability. This 1D notion of a critical flux, however, may not be so relevant for inhomogeneously irradiated…
Feedbacks that can destabilize the climates of synchronously-rotating rocky planets may arise on planets with strong day-night surface temperature contrasts. Earth-like habitable-zone (HZ) planets maintain stable surface liquid water over…
The recent detections of temperate terrestrial planets orbiting nearby stars and the promise of characterizing their atmospheres motivates a need to understand how the diversity of possible planetary parameters affects the climate of…
H$_2$-dominated terrestrial exoplanets are highly accessible to atmospheric characterization via transmission spectroscopy, but such atmospheres are generally thought to be unstable to escape. Here, we propose that close-in, eccentric…
Volatile elements - those that vaporize at low temperatures - are depleted in lunar rocks relative to terrestrial rocks. This systematic chemical depletion is evidence for vaporization and preferential removal of vapor from proto-lunar…
The interiors of many planets consist mostly of fluid layers. When these layers are subject to superadiabatic temperature or compositional gradients, turbulent convection transports heat and momentum. In addition, planets are fast rotators.…
The models that most successfully reproduce the orbital architecture of the Solar System terrestrial planets start from a narrow annulus of material that grows into embryos and then planets. However, it is not clear how this ring model can…
Planetary rotation rate is a key parameter in determining atmospheric circulation and hence the spatial pattern of clouds. Since clouds can exert a dominant control on planetary radiation balance, rotation rate could be critical for…
Mars, Venus and Earth are expected to have started in a hot molten state. Here, we discuss how these three terrestrial planets diverged in their evolution and what mechanisms could be the cause. We discuss that early-on after magma ocean…
The upper atmospheres of Mars and Titan, as well as those on many other planetary bodies, exhibit significant density variations vs. altitude that are interpreted as gravity waves. Such data is then used to extract vertical temperature…
The thermal evolution of rocky planets on geological timescales (Gyr) depends on the heat input from the long-lived radiogenic elements potassium, thorium, and uranium. Concentrations of the latter two in rocky planet mantles are likely to…
Earth possesses a persistent, internally-generated magnetic field, whereas no trace of a dynamo has been detected on Venus, at present or in the past, although a high surface temperature and recent resurfacing events may have removed…
I present here a new, indivisible planetary science paradigm, a wholly self-consistent vision of the nature of matter in the Solar System, and dynamics and energy sources of planets. Massive-core planets formed by condensing and raining-out…
Massive cores of the giant planets are thought to have formed in a gas disk by accretion of pebble-size particles whose accretional cross-section is enhanced by aerodynamic gas drag [1][2]. A commonly held view is that the terrestrial…
The torques exerted by a locally isothermal disk on an embedded planet lead to rapid inward migration. Recent work has shown that modeling the thermodynamics without the assumption of local isothermality reveals regions where the net torque…