gas giants Archives

Hovmoller plots showing the time evolution of meridional wind velocity v as a function of pressure for the simulated hot planet (HP) and warm planet (WP) at the substellar point (λ, ϕ) = (0◦, 0◦) (left) and mid-latitudes (λ, ϕ) = (0◦, 45◦) (right) with red and blue colors corresponding to northward and southward flow, respectively. Both planets exhibit oscillations in their equatorial regions with a period of ≲3 τp and a downward propagation in time, as illustrated by red arrows. The HP has higher amplitude and more clear oscillations in v compared to the WP. Rossby waves appear as oscillations in the deep regions of both planets at (λ, ϕ) = (0◦, 45◦). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Bridging The Atmospheric Circulations Of Hot And Warm Giant Exoplanets

by Keith CowingMay 7, 2025May 7, 2025

We perform high-resolution atmospheric flow simulations of hot and warm giant exoplanets that are tidally locked.

Newly formed giant planet - Grok via Astrobiology.com

Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Formation of Giant Planets

by Keith CowingJanuary 24, 2025January 24, 2025

Giant planets dominate the mass of many planetary systems, including the Solar System, and represent the best-characterized class of extrasolar planets.

Perturbation analysis via injection-retrieval to assess the precision required on the broadening parameters in the JWST era. Top Left: Synthetic transmission spectrum of a warm-Jupiter spanning NIRSpec and MIRI bands used for the retrieval. The blue line represents the best-fit model obtained when cross-retrieved with the CSd3.00 cross-sections. Bottom Left: Deviation of the residual corresponding to the best fit presented on the upper panel. No structure is seen due to parameter compensation as highlighted in N22. Top Right: Posterior probability distributions for the mixing ratio of CO2 for 15 different cross-sections showing increased levels of biases with increased perturbation. The dotted black line represents the ‘truth’ used for generating the synthetic spectrum. Overall variation of ∼1 dex is seen among the retrieved molecular abundance, consistent with N22. Bottom Right: Same for H2O. A similar variation of ∼1 dex overall, though leading to more significant biases due to the narrower distributions than for CO2. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ab Initio Quantum Dynamics as a Scalable Solution to the Exoplanet Opacity Challenge: A Case Study of CO2 in Hydrogen Atmosphere

by Keith CowingSeptember 9, 2024September 9, 2024

Light-matter interactions lie at the heart of our exploration of exoplanetary atmospheres. Interpreting data obtained by remote sensing is enabled by meticulous, time- and resource-consuming work aiming at deepening our […]

Artist impression of solar system formation. IMAGE CREDIT: GEMINI OBSERVATORY/AURA/LYNETTE COOK.

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

The Solar System: Structural Overview, Origins and Evolution

by Keith CowingMay 8, 2024May 8, 2024

Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics.

Contours for the ratio rH/rT of the two radii of circumplanetary disk. The red dashed line denotes the ratio rH/rT = 1. The area to the right of the red dashed line with rH/rT > 1 is favourable for moon’s survival and the area to the left with rH/rT < 1 is unfavourable for moon’s survival. -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Status Report

Magnetic Field Of Gas Giant Exoplanets And Its Influence On The Retention Of Their Exomoons

by Keith CowingFebruary 13, 2024February 13, 2024

We study the magnetic and tidal interactions of a gas-giant exoplanet with its host star and with its exomoons, and focus on their retention. We briefly revisit the scaling law […]

Maps of the wavelength dependent optical depth (on a log scale), with optical depths of 0.1, 1.0 and 10 indicated by dotted/solid/dashed line respectively. We compare the optical depth profiles for an R=10 km, ρ =2 g cm−3 , JWST Ice ver. A cometary composition impact at three different points in time, 1 year (A), 5 years (C), and 25 years (C - steady-state) after impact, with our unperturbed HD209458b reference model (D). To emphasise how the opacity of the atmosphere varies time we also include, on our steady-state opacity map, the 1 year (green), 5 year (blue), 25 year (red) and reference (orange) τ = 1 surfaces as light shading. Note the significant effect that the addition of cometary material has had on the optical depth, in particular how an optical depth of one is reached at lower pressures, averaging ∼ 10−2 bar at steady-state vs ∼ 10−1 bar in the unperturbed model, helping to explain the difference in the transmission spectra seen in Figure 8. -- astro-ph.EP

Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Jupiter, Status Report

The Impact Of Cometary Impacts On The Chemistry, Climate, And Spectra Of Hot Jupiter Atmospheres

by Keith CowingFebruary 9, 2024February 9, 2024

Impacts from icy and rocky bodies have helped shape the composition of solar system objects, for example the Earth-Moon system, or the recent impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. […]

Distribution of eccentricities for all planets more massive than 0.3 MJ interior to the snow line (left panels) and exterior to the snow line (right panels). For the top two panels, both the shade and the size of the plotted data are logarithmically proportional to the planet mass, where dark green indicates a low mass and light green indicates a high mass. The bottom two panels show the histograms of the eccentricity data appearing in the top two panels. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Habitable Zones, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Eccentricity Distribution Beyond the Snow Line and Implications for Planetary Habitability

by Keith CowingFebruary 7, 2024February 7, 2024

A fundamental question in the study of planetary system demographics is: how common is the solar system architecture?

Schematic diagram of various outcomes of planet formation when we assume efficient planet formation at pressure bumps. This diagram summarizes the results from Section 2.1 and 3.1. Pressure bumps allow planets to form quickly and at very similar time and location, which leads to pairs or chains of planets with highly similar masses. This leads to intra-similar “SuperEarths” and “Jupiters” whose masses are set by the pebble isolation mass and gas saturation mass, respectively. Meanwhile, planets that form cores slowly (“Earths”) or accrete massive envelopes slowly (“Saturns”) would exhibit less intra-system mass uniformity. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Status Report

Earths Are Not Super-Earths, Saturns Are Not Jupiters: Imprints Of Pressure-bump Planet Formation On Planetary Architectures

by Keith CowingJanuary 14, 2024January 14, 2024

In protoplanetary disks, sufficiently massive planets excite pressure bumps, which can then be preferred locations for forming new planet cores. We discuss how this loop may affect the architecture of […]

Schematic of the observing routine on Jupiter by VLT/ESPRESSO on the 22 July 2019. The small circles represent the FOV of the fibre proportional to the size of Jupiter’s disk in the context of these observations (0.5 arc seconds in diameter for the size of the FOV), and their respective labels. We also included a grid to tentatively map the relative position of each observing position in latitude and longitude. Grid lines have intervals of 15∘ on both coordinates. The solid black line on the right side of the spherical grid represents the morning terminator, while the blue dotted line marks the location of the 12 h local time meridian. The picture of the planet’s disk was taken from the Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory. Picture credits go to Gary Walker.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Press Release

Comparative Exolanetology: Jupiter Targeted By VLT/ESPRESSO Exoplanet Hunter

by Keith CowingDecember 26, 2023December 26, 2023

For the first time, an instrument to find planets light years away was used on an object in the Solar System, in a study on Jupiter’s winds.

The Masses (or M sin i values or mass estimates) vs. semi-major axes of the KGPS-I transiting planets and companions. For systems with a giant planet (M sin i > 0.3 MJ), the circle fill color corresponds to the maximum detected companion mass in the system (capped at 100 Jupiter masses), and the edge color encircling each point corresponds to the planetary system. Black dots correspond to transiting planets in our survey for which giant planets were not detected. Planet masses or M sin i values are reported where they are measured, but mass estimates are used for m ≲ 3 × 10−2MJ (see text for details). Companions that have eccentric, stellar-mass companions at large separations (KOIs 2169 and 3158, yellow) have planets that are smaller and closer to their stars than the typical transiting planets from the KGPS sample, whereas transiting planets that have giant planet companions (non-yellow colors) have comparable sizes and orbits to the transiting planets without detected giant planet companions. -- -- astro-ph.EP "The Kepler Giant Planet Search. I: A Decade of Kepler Planet Host Radial Velocities from W. M. Keck Observatory" -- astro-ph.EP The Kepler Giant Planet Search. I: A Decade of Kepler Planet Host Radial Velocities from W. M. Keck Observatory (older version) -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Astrophysicists Publish Kepler Giant Planet Search, An Aid To “Figure Out Where To Find Life”

by Keith CowingDecember 21, 2023December 21, 2023

A team of astrophysicists led by Lauren Weiss, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, created the first-ever catalog of small, Earth-like […]

gas giants

Bridging The Atmospheric Circulations Of Hot And Warm Giant Exoplanets

Formation of Giant Planets

Ab Initio Quantum Dynamics as a Scalable Solution to the Exoplanet Opacity Challenge: A Case Study of CO2 in Hydrogen Atmosphere

The Solar System: Structural Overview, Origins and Evolution

Magnetic Field Of Gas Giant Exoplanets And Its Influence On The Retention Of Their Exomoons

The Impact Of Cometary Impacts On The Chemistry, Climate, And Spectra Of Hot Jupiter Atmospheres

Eccentricity Distribution Beyond the Snow Line and Implications for Planetary Habitability

Earths Are Not Super-Earths, Saturns Are Not Jupiters: Imprints Of Pressure-bump Planet Formation On Planetary Architectures

Comparative Exolanetology: Jupiter Targeted By VLT/ESPRESSO Exoplanet Hunter

Astrophysicists Publish Kepler Giant Planet Search, An Aid To “Figure Out Where To Find Life”

Ocean Planet Expeditions: Alvin Submersible Certified To Return To Service

Martian Dust Storms May Ggenerate Atmospheric Electrical Conditions That Could Impact Mars Missions

Discovery Of An Exterior Third Planet Orbiting β Pictoris

C,N,O,S, And Photochemistry In A Temperate Giant Planet Orbiting A Late M Dwarf

Coupled AtmospHere Interior modeL Intercomparison (CHILI). I. Evolutionary Modelling — Primordial Magma Oceans of Earth and Venus