Available JWST observations TRAPPIST-1 system have suggested that several of the planets are likely airless, or possess a very tenuous atmosphere.
This paper presents a version of the HEXTOR energy balance model that has been configured for the study of habitable terrestrial planets orbiting low-mass stars. The model is validated for […]
TRAPPIST-1 is an ultra-cool dwarf that flares frequently. These flares shape the surrounding planets’ high-energy irradiation environments, with consequences for atmospheric chemistry and escape, and they can contaminate transmission spectroscopy […]
The James Webb Space Telescope and the future Habitable Worlds Observatory aim to discover exoplanet atmospheric spectra that detect life. Currently, most existing spectral “retrieval” algorithms focus on inferring the […]
Following the 2022 alert of a TESS object of interest transiting TOI-5624 (a G7 V star ∼100 pc away), a CHEOPS campaign in 2023 detected four planetary signals at Pb≈3.4, […]
Red dwarf stars—cooler and smaller than our Sun—make up more than 75% of the stars in our Galaxy. Astronomers have shown that small, Earth-like planets are common around this type […]
Close-in terrestrial exoplanets around M dwarfs reside in dense, magnetized winds, where non-ideal plasma coupling can strongly affect how electromagnetic energy is redistributed within the dayside interaction region.
New observations are opening the possibility of characterising habitable environments in exoplanetary systems, with the recent example of the candidate hycean world K2-18 b.
New Cornell research – co-authored by an undergraduate and two recent alumni – will help exoplanet scientists pinpoint the most likely places to look for life in the universe out […]
Detecting and characterizing the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets has proven to be challenging for JWST. Transit spectroscopy of the TRAPPIST-1 planets has been impacted by the effects of spots and […]
