PLATO Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Astrobiology

Artist’s impression of the hotspot in WASP-76 b (Credit: Tania Cunha (Planetário do Porto - Centro Ciência Viva)/Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço)

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço Paves The Way In The Field Of Exoclimatology

by Keith CowingSeptember 6, 2024September 6, 2024

Three papers about “hot jupiter” WASP-76 b, led by Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço researchers, will be the foundation for understanding the global climate of a giant exoplanet.

Representation of biased G-, earlyM-, and lateM-pop . X-axes represent the log of the semi-major axis in AU-unit, and the Y-axes represent the log of masses in M⊕-unit. The coloured dots represent visible planets with radial velocity semi-amplitudes exceeding the threshold, while the grey dots represent invisible planets with radial velocity semi-amplitudes below the threshold. The green boxes represent the definition of an ELP adopted in this study. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Earth-like Planets Hosting Systems: Architecture And Properties

by Keith CowingAugust 23, 2024August 23, 2024

The discovery of Earth-like planets is a major focus of current planetology research and faces a significant technological challenge. Indeed, when it comes to detecting planets as small and cold […]

An Artist's impression of the European Space Agency's PLATO spacecraft. -- ESA/ATG medialab

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, PLATO, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The PLATO Terrestrial Planet Hunter Telescope Will Begin Searching For Another Earth In 2026

by Keith CowingJuly 29, 2024April 27, 2026

Europe’s next big space mission – a telescope that will hunt for Earth-like rocky planets outside of our solar system – is on course to launch at the end of […]

Illustration of the PLATO objectives: populating the still quite empty HZ. Known small-low mass planets are shown in a stellar mass – orbital distance diagram, with symbol size and colour scaled with their masses and radii, respectively. The green band indicates the approximate position of the HZ, accounting for a potential early Mars or Venus in our Solar System. Left panel: planets ≤ 10REarth and ≤ 15MEarth; Right panel: same, but only showing planets with precision better than 5% and 10% in radius and mass, respectively. Black diamonds indicate Solar System telluric planets. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, PLATO, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

The PLATO Mission

by Keith CowingJune 12, 2024April 27, 2026

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA’s M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars.

Lightning -- NASA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, TRAPPIST-1

The Effect Of Lightning On The Atmospheric Chemistry Of Exoplanets And Potential Biosignatures

by Keith CowingFebruary 21, 2024February 21, 2024

Lightning has been suggested to play a role in triggering the occurrence of bio-ready chemical species. Future missions (PLATO, ARIEL, HWO, LIFE) and ground-based ELTs will investigate the atmospheres of […]

Detection of the runaway greenhouse threshold. From simulated radius and instellation measurements of a large (N = 500) survey, we compute the moving average (blue confidence intervals) and fit the runaway greenhouse hypothesis to it (Eqn. 4, random draws from the posterior in red). The pattern is detected with high significance. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Extinction events, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Bioverse: The Habitable Zone Inner Edge Discontinuity as an Imprint of Runaway Greenhouse Climates on Exoplanet Demographics

by Keith CowingOctober 10, 2023October 9, 2023

Long-term magma ocean phases on rocky exoplanets orbiting closer to their star than the runaway greenhouse threshold – the inner edge of the classical habitable zone – may offer insights […]

TESS exoplanets as a function of planet type and orbital period, separated into planet candidates (black), false positives (red), previously known planets discovered by other missions than TESS (blue), and confirmed planets verified through additional observations using other telescopes (green). -- astro-ph.EP

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

Estimating The Number Of Planets That PLATO Can Detect

by Keith CowingJuly 26, 2023April 27, 2026

The PLATO mission is scheduled for launch in 2026. This study aims to estimate the number of exoplanets that PLATO can detect as a function of planetary size and period, […]