Super earths

The discovery of transiting planets with masses below 10 MEanh and radii consistent with rocky planetary models answered the important question as to whether planets more massive than Earth could be rocky. 10 Mgarth and 2 Earth radii are used as estimates from planet formation theories as the upper limit for rocky planet mass and size. For comparison, Uranus has about 14.5 MEanh and about 4 Earth radii. Above about 10 Earth masses a planet is thought to accumulate a substantial amount of gas that makes it akin to a gas giant with a substantial atmosphere, not a rocky planet with a thin outgassed atmosphere. Where exactly such a cut-off mass is that distinguishes rocky Super-Earths and gaseous Mini-Neptunes - if it exists at all - is an open question that mean density measurements of detected exoplanets currently explore. [Pg.146]

The range of characteristics of planets is likely to exceed our experience with the planets and satellites in our own Solar System by far. Models of planets more massive than our Earth - rocky Super-Earths - need to consider the changing atmosphere structure, as well as the interior structure of the planet. Also, Earthlike planets orbiting stars of different spectral type might evolve differently. Modeling these influences will help to optimize the design of the proposed instruments to search for Earth-like planets. [Pg.156]

Leger A, Rouan D, Schneider J, Barge P, Fridlund M, Samuel B, Ollivier M, Guenther E et al (2009) Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. VIII. CoRoT-7b the first super-Earth with measured radius. Astron Astrophys 506 287... [Pg.164]

Schaefer L, Fegley B (2009) Chemistry of silicate atmospheres of evaporating super-Earths. Astrophys J L703 L113... [Pg.164]

Miguel Y, Kaltenegger L, Fegley B, Schaefer L (2011) Compositions of hot super-Earth atmospheres exploring Kepler candidates. Astrophys J L742 L19... [Pg.164]

Udry S, Bonfils X, Delfosse X, Forveille T, Mayor M, Perrier C, Bouchy F, Lovis C, Pepe F, Queloz D, Bertaux J-L et al (2007) The HARPS search for southern extrasolar planets XI. Super-Earths (5 8 M Earth) in a 3-planet system. Astro Astrophy 469 43... [Pg.164]

Valencia D, Sasselov DD, O Connell RJ (2007) Detailed models of super-Earths how well can we infer bulk properties Astrophys J 665 1413... [Pg.165]

Charbonneau D, Berta ZK, Irwin J, Burke CJ, Nutzman P, Buchhave LA, Lovis C, Bonfils X, Latham DW et al (2009) A super-Earth transiting a nearby low-mass star. Nature 462 891... [Pg.165]

Desert J-M, Bean J, Miller-Ricci Kempton E, Berta ZK, Charbonneau D et al (2011) Observational evidence for a metal-rich atmosphere on the super-Earth GJ1214b. Astrophys J 731 40... [Pg.165]

Rauer H, Gebauer S, Paris PV, Cabrera J, Godolt M, Grenfell JL, Belu A, Selsis F, Hedelt P, Schreier F (2011) Potential biosignatures in super-Earth atmospheres. I. Spectral appearance of super-Earths around M dwarfs. Astron Astrophys 529, id.A8 2011... [Pg.165]

Kaltenegger L, Segura A, Mohanty S (2011) Model spectra of the first potentially habitable super-Earth - G1581d. Astrophys J 733 35... [Pg.165]

Super-Earth planets are planets with masses between 1 and 10 Earth masses. Such masses are still beyond the mass of the gas giants, e.g. the mass of Neptune is 17 MEarth- The atmospheres of such objects may be different from atmospheres for typical terrestrial planets. Some of them may possess hydrogen rich atmospheres. These objects should show strong H2O features in their spectra. Objects that have lost most of their hydrogen could exhibit strong CO2 features. Generally, this type of objects seems to represent a transition between rocky objects and Neptune-like planets. The discovery of super-Earths was discussed e.g. in Elkins-Tanton and Sea-ger, 2008 [120]. They argue that there are three ways how such objects may obtain atmospheres ... [Pg.150]

The habitability of super earths was discussed e.g. by Kaltenegger and Kasting, 2008 [177]. [Pg.150]

It is generally believed that super-earths may have a large variety of atmospheres. Some of them may even retain a hydrogen rich atmosphere (Miller-Ricci, Seager and Sasselov, 2009 [230]). Super-Earths with massive hydrogen atmospheres will reveal strong spectral features due to water, whereas those that have lost most of their hydrogen (and have no liquid ocean) will be marked by CO2 features and a lack of H2O. [Pg.150]

EUdns-Tanton, L.T., Seager, S. Ranges of atmospheric mass and composition of Super-Earth exoplanets. Astrophys. J. 685, 1237-1246 (2008)... [Pg.218]

Ford, E.B., Colon, K.D., Blake, C., Lee, B., Mahadevrm, S. First results of exoplanet observations with the Gran telescopio canatias narrow-band transit photometry capable of detecting super-earth-size planets. In Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, vol. 41,... [Pg.219]

Irwin, J., Charbonneau, D., Nutzman, P, Falco, E. The MEarth project searching fortransiting habitable super-Earth planets around nearby M-dwarfs. In Stempels, E. (ed.) American Institute of Physics Conference Series, vol. 1094, pp. 445-448 (2009)... [Pg.221]

Kaltenegger, L., Kasting, J. Session 22. Habitability of super-Earths. Astrobiology 8,394-... [Pg.221]

Mayor, M., Udry, S., Lovis, C., Repe, R, Queloz, D., Benz, W, Bertaux, J.-L., Bouchy, R, Mordasini, C., Segransan, D. The HARRS search for southern extra-solar planets. XIII. A planetary system with 3 super-Earths (4.2,6.9, and 9.2 M.). Astron. Astrophys. 493,639-644 (2009)... [Pg.223]

MiUer-Ricci, E., Seager, S., Sasselov, D. The atmospheric signatures of super-Earths how to distinguish between hydrogen-rich and hydrogen-poor atmospheres. Astrophys. J. 690, 1056-1067(2009)... [Pg.223]

Zhou, l.-L. Formation and tidal evolution of hot super-Earths in multiple planetary systems. ArXiv e-prints (2009)... [Pg.230]

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