相关论文: Radius and Structure models for the First Super-Ea…

Unlike hot Jupiters or other gas giants, super-Earths are expected to have a wide variety of compositions, ranging from terrestrial bodies like our own to more gaseous planets like Neptune. Observations of transiting systems, which allow us…

The newly discovered planet GJ 1214b is the first known transiting super-Earth requiring a significant atmosphere to explain its observed mass and radius. Models for the structure of this planet predict that it likely possesses a H-He…

Planetary formation models predict the existence of massive terrestrial planets and experiments are now being designed that should succeed in discovering them and measuring their masses and radii. We calculate internal structures of planets…

Small planets, 1-4x the size of Earth, are extremely common around Sun-like stars, and surprisingly so, as they are missing in our solar system. Recent detections have yielded enough information about this class of exoplanets to begin…

Nearly 30 years after the discovery of the first exoplanet around a main sequence star, thousands of planets have now been confirmed. These discoveries have completely revolutionized our understanding of planetary systems, revealing types…

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…

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…

The ancestor philosophers' dream of thousands of new worlds is finally realised: about 3500 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the neighborhood of our Sun. Most of them are very different from those we used to know in our Solar…

We investigate pathways for the formation of icy super-Earth mass planets orbiting at 125-250 AU around a 1 solar mass star. An extensive suite of coagulation calculations demonstrates that swarms of 1 cm to 10 m planetesimals can form…

The recent discovery of a staggering diversity of planets beyond the Solar System has brought with it a greatly expanded search space for habitable worlds. The Kepler exoplanet survey has revealed that most planets in our interstellar…

In contrast to planets with masses similar to that of Jupiter and higher, the bulk compositions of planets in the so-called super-Earth regime cannot be uniquely determined from a mass and radius measurement alone. For these planets, there…

The Solar System includes two planets --- Mercury and Mars --- significantly less massive than Earth, and all evidence indicates that planets of similar size orbit many stars. In fact, one of the first exoplanets to be discovered is a…

The majority of the transiting planets discovered by the Kepler mission (called super-Earths here, includes the so-called 'sub-Neptunes') orbit close to their stars. As such, photoevaporation of their hydrogen envelopes etch sharp features…

Super-Earths with orbital periods less than 100 days are extremely abundant around Sun-like stars. It is unlikely that these planets formed at their current locations. Rather, they likely formed at large distances from the star and…

With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…

Since the discovery of the first extrasolar giant planets around Sun-like stars, evolving observational capabilities have brought us closer to the detection of true Earth analogues. The size of an exoplanet can be determined when it…

Over the past three decades instruments on the ground and in space have discovered thousands of planets outside the solar system. These observations have given rise to an astonishingly detailed picture of the demographics of short-period…

Super-Earths orbiting M-dwarf stars may be the most common habitable planets in the Universe. However, their habitability is threatened by intense irradiation from their host stars, which drives the escape of water to space and can lead to…

Many rocky exoplanets are heavier and larger than Earth, so-called "Super-Earths". Some of these may be habitable, and a few may be inhabited by Super-Earthlings. Due to the higher surface gravity on these worlds, space-flight is much more…

Hot super-Earths are exoplanets with masses < 10 Earth masses and orbital periods < 20 days. Around 8 hot super-Earths have been discovered in the neighborhood of solar system. In this lecture, we review the mechanisms for the formation of…