Exoplanets clue to sun's curious chemistry

This textbook is intended to be used in a lecture course for college students majoring in Earth Sciences. Planetary science provides an opportunity for these students to apply a wide range of subject matter pertaining to the Earth to the study of other planets and their principal satellites. In this way, planetary science tends to unify subjects in the Earth Sciences that are traditionally taught separately. Therefore, planetary science is well-suited to be taught as a capstone course for senior undergraduates in geology departments and as an introduction to the solar system in astronomy departments. Both groups of students will benefit because planetary science bridges the gap between geology and astronomy and it prepares geologists and astronomers to participate actively in the...

Over the past ten years, the discovery of extrasolar planets has opened a new field of astronomy, and this area of research is rapidly growing, from both the observational and theoretical point of view. The presence of many giant exoplanets in the close vicinity of their star shows that these newly discovered planetary systems are very different from the solar system. New theoretical models are being developed in order to understand their formation scenarios, and new observational methods are being implemented to increase the sensitivity of exoplanet detections.

In the present book, the authors address the question of planetary systems from all aspects. Starting from the facts (the detection of more than 300 extraterrestrial planets), they first describe the various methods...

This book reviews the current state of knowledge of the atmospheres of the giant gaseous planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The current theories of their formation are reviewed and their recently observed temperature, composition and cloud structures are contrasted and compared with simple thermodynamic, radiative transfer and dynamical models. The instruments and techniques that have been used to remotely measure their atmospheric properties are also reviewed, and the likely development of outer planet observations over the next two decades is outlined.
This second edition has been extensively updated following the Cassini mission results for Jupiter/Saturn and the newest ground-based measurements for Uranus/Neptune as well as on the latest development in the...

The small bodies in planetary systems are indicative of the material evolution, the dynamical evolution and the presence of planets in a system. Recent astronomical research, space research, laboratory research and numerical simulations have brought a wealth of new and exciting findings on extra-solar planetary systems and on asteroids, comets, meteoroids and trans-Neptunian objects in our solar system. Progress in astronomical instrumentation has led to the discovery and investigation of small bodies in the outer solar system and to observations of debris disks related to the small bodies in extra-solar planetary systems. Space research allowed for close studies of some of the small solar system bodies from spacecraft. This class-tested lecture set is intended as an introduction to...