We reconsider the commonly held assumption that warm debris disks are tracers of terrestrial planet formation. The high occurrence rate inferred for Earth-mass planets around mature solar-type stars based on […]
extrasolar
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release
Milankovitch Cycles of Terrestrial Planets in Binary Star Systems
The habitability of planets in binary star systems depends not only on the radiation environment created by the two stars, but also on the perturbations to planetary orbits and rotation […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release
Prompt Planetesimal Formation Beyond the Snow Line
We develop a simple model to predict the radial distribution of planetesimal formation. The model is based on the observed growth of dust to mm-sized particles, which drift radially, pile-up, […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release
Tidal Heating of Young Super-Earth Atmospheres
Short-period Earth to Neptune size exoplanets (super-Earths) with voluminous gas envelopes seem to be very common. These gas atmospheres are thought to have originated from the protoplanetary disk in which […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release
Revised Properties of Kepler M Dwarf Stars and Their Planets
We classified the reddest (r-J> 2.2) stars observed by the NASA Kepler mission into main sequence dwarf or evolved giant stars and determined the properties of 4216 M dwarfs based […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release
Identifying Planetary Biosignature Impostors
O2 and O3 have been long considered the most robust individual biosignature gases in a planetary atmosphere, yet multiple mechanisms that may produce them in the absence of life have […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Press Release
Impact of Non-Uniform Thermal Structure on the Interpretation of Exoplanet Emission Spectra
The determination of atmospheric structure and molecular abundances of planetary atmospheres via spectroscopy involves direct comparisons between models and data. While varying in sophistication, most model-spectra comparisons fundamentally assume “1D” […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release
Phase Changes in the Climate Dynamics of Tidally Locked Terrestrial Exoplanets
We investigate 3D atmosphere dynamics for tidally locked terrestrial planets with an Earth-like atmosphere and irradiation for different rotation periods (Prot=1100 days) and planet sizes (RP=12REarth) with unprecedented fine detail. […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release
HD 80606: Searching the Chemical Signature of Planet Formation
Binary systems with similar components are ideal laboratories which allow several physical processes to be tested, such as the possible chemical pattern imprinted by the planet formation process. Aims. We […]
Posted inAstrobiology (general), Press Release
Is Earth Life Premature from a Cosmic Perspective?
The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life on other planets could be […]