Role of ocean heat transport in climates of tidally locked exoplanets around M dwarf stars.

Atmospheric Heat Redistribution and Collapse on Tidally Locked Rocky Planets

Atmospheric collapse is likely to be of fundamental importance to tidally locked rocky exoplanets but remains understudied. Here, general results on the heat transport and stability of tidally locked terrestrial-type atmospheres are reported. First, the problem is modeled with an idealized 3D general circulation model (GCM) with gray gas radiative transfer. It is shown that over a wide range of...

Equatorial Superrotation on Tidally Locked Exoplanets

A reappraisal of the habitability of planets around M dwarf stars.

Stable, hydrogen-burning, M dwarf stars make up about 75% of all stars in the Galaxy. They are extremely long-lived, and because they are much smaller in mass than the Sun (between 0.5 and 0.08 M(Sun)), their temperature and stellar luminosity are low and peaked in the red. We have re-examined what is known at present about the potential for a terrestrial planet forming within, or migrating int...

First Results from the CHEPS ⋆ : Exoplanets and the Discovery of an Eccentric Brown Dwarf in the Desert †

We report the discovery of a brown dwarf on an eccentric orbit and with a semimajor axis that places it in the brown dwarf desert region around the star HD191760. The star has a spectral type of G3IV/V and a metallicity ([Fe/H]) of 0.29 dex. HD191760 adds to the small number of metal-rich stars with brown dwarf companions. The brown dwarf (HD191760b) is found to have an orbital period of 505.57...

Constraints on Planet Occurrence Around Nearby Mid-to-Late M Dwarfs From the Mearth Project

The MEarth Project is a ground-based photometric survey intended to find planets transiting the closest and smallest main-sequence stars. In its first four years, MEarth discovered one transiting exoplanet, the 2.7R⊕ planet GJ1214b. Here, we answer an outstanding question: in light of the bounty of small planets transiting small stars uncovered by the Kepler mission, should MEarth have found mo...