By analysing the transit LC of a planet-hosting star or the induced RV oscillations, many useful information on the planet may be retrieved. However, inferring the physical parameters of the planet (mass, size, semi-major axis, etc.) requires the preliminary knowledge of some parameters of the host star, especially its mass and/or radius, that are generally inferred through theoretical evolutionary models.
Future space-based direct imaging missions are poised to search for biosignatures in the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets orbiting nearby AFGKM stars.
Having discovered that Earth-sized planets are common, we are now embarking on a journey to determine if Earth-like planets are also common.
For almost a decade, astronomers have tried to explain why so many pairs of planets outside our solar system have an odd configuration -- their orbits seem to have been pushed apart by a powerful unknown mechanism.
Astronomers have gleaned some of the best data yet on the composition of a planet known as HR 8799c -- a young giant gas planet about 7 times the mass of Jupiter that orbits its star every 200 years.
An international team of scientists, including high performance computing (HPC) experts from the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), astronomers from the Paris Observatory and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), in collaboration with NVIDIA, is taking the search for habitable planets and observation of first epoch galaxies to the next level.
The search for habitable and inhabited environments beyond our planet commonly focuses on analogs to Earth, especially in the case of exoplanets. Observations from ground-based facilities, satellites, and spacecraft have yielded a rich collection of data that can be used to effectively view a distant Earth within the context of exoplanet characterization.
Large-scale transit surveys such as NGTS, TESS and PLATO promise to deliver a wealth of potential targets for follow-up transmission spectroscopy study.
In this paper, we address the migration of small mass planets in 3D radiative disks. Indeed, migration of small planets is known to be too fast inwards in locally isothermal conditions.
The habitable zone (HZ) around a star is typically defined as the region where a rocky planet can maintain liquid water on its surface.
We study the masses and radii of 60 exoplanets smaller than 4 Earth radii with orbital periods shorter than 100 days.
We investigate water and deuterated water chemistry in turbulent protoplanetary disks. Chemical rate equations are solved with the diffusion term, mimicking turbulent mixing in vertical direction.
If water is the source of life, then finding the source of water certainly qualifies as a worthy astrobiological endeavor. Scientists have formulated certain scenarios for how our planet became wet and stayed wet, but other planets may not have been able to tap this same source.
Most stars and their planets form in open clusters. Over 95 per cent of such clusters have stellar densities too low (less than a hundred stars per cubic parsec) to withstand internal and external dynamical stresses and fall apart within a few hundred million years.
Chemical kinetics plays an important role in controlling the atmospheric composition of all planetary atmospheres, including those of extrasolar planets. For the hottest exoplanets, the composition can closely follow thermochemical-equilibrium predictions, at least in the visible and infrared photosphere at dayside (eclipse) conditions.
An International Collaboration of FACom researchers and astronomers of the University of Texas (El Paso) and New Mexico State University have discovered a physical mechanism that could make binary stars more hospitable to habitable planets than single stars.