Publications (61)
Phanerozoic biological reworking of the continental carbonate rock reservoir
Craig R. Walton, Oliver Shorttle
Understanding the co-evolution of complex life with Earth's geology is an enduring challenge. The rock record evidences remarkable correlations between changes in biology and the w…
Spatially resolving the volatile sulfur abundance in the HD 100546 protoplanetary disk
Luke Keyte, Mihkel Kama, Ko-Ju Chuang +5
Volatile elements play a crucial role in the formation of planetary systems. Their abundance and distribution in protoplanetary disks provide vital insights into the connection bet…
A mineralogical reason why all exoplanets cannot be equally oxidising
Claire Marie Guimond, Oliver Shorttle, Sean Jordan +1
From core to atmosphere, the oxidation states of elements in a planet shape its character. Oxygen fugacity (fO) is one parameter indicating these likely oxidation states. The o…
Evidence for post-nebula volatilisation in an exo-planetary body
John H. D. Harrison, Oliver Shorttle, Amy Bonsor
The loss and gain of volatile elements during planet formation is key for setting their subsequent climate, geodynamics, and habitability. Two broad regimes of volatile element tra…
Tracing the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone with Sulfur Chemistry
Sean Jordan, Oliver Shorttle, Paul B. Rimmer
The circumstellar liquid-water habitable zone guides our search for potentially inhabited exoplanets, but remains observationally untested. We show that the inner edge of the habit…
Photochemically-produced SO in the atmosphere of WASP-39b
Shang-Min Tsai, Elspeth K. H. Lee, Diana Powell +82
Photochemistry is a fundamental process of planetary atmospheres that regulates the atmospheric composition and stability. However, no unambiguous photochemical products have been…
Comparative biosignatures with systemic retrievals
Tereza Constantinou, Oliver Shorttle, Miles Cranmer +1
The discovery of inhabited exoplanets hinges on identifying biosignature gases. JWST can reveal biosignature gases, though current discoveries have yet to evidence life. The centra…
Cosmic dust fertilization of glacial prebiotic chemistry on early Earth
Craig R. Walton, Jessica K. Rigley, Alexander Lipp +5
Earth's surface is deficient in available forms of many elements considered limiting for prebiotic chemistry. In contrast, many extraterrestrial rocky objects are rich in these sam…
Molecular tracers of planet formation in the atmospheres of hot Jupiters
Richard Hobbs, Oliver Shorttle, Nikku Madhusudhan
The atmospheric chemical composition of a hot Jupiter can lead to insights into where in its natal protoplanetary disk it formed and its subsequent migration pathway. We use a 1-D…
Impact sculpting of the early martian atmosphere
Oliver Shorttle, Homa Saeidfirozeh, Paul Rimmer +4
Intense bombardment of solar system planets in the immediate aftermath of protoplanetary disk dissipation has played a key role in their atmospheric evolution. During this epoch, e…
Photochemistry of Venus-Like Planets Orbiting K- and M-Dwarf Stars
Sean Jordan, Paul B. Rimmer, Oliver Shorttle +1
Compared to the diversity seen in exoplanets, Venus is a veritable astrophysical twin of the Earth, however its global cloud layer truncates features in transmission spectroscopy,…
Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs I: Orbital period distribution
Yuqi Li, Amy Bonsor, Oliver Shorttle +1
The evolution of planetary systems around white dwarfs is crucial to understanding the presence of planetary material in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. These systems uniquely pro…
Origin of life's building blocks in Carbon and Nitrogen rich surface hydrothermal vents
Paul B Rimmer, Oliver Shorttle
There are two dominant and contrasting classes of origin of life scenarios: those predicting that life emerged in submarine hydrothermal systems, where chemical disequilibrium can…
Earth and Mars interior structures set by re-melting of the first solid mantle
Antonio Manjón-Cabeza Córdoba, Maxim D. Ballmer, Oliver Shorttle
Magma ocean crystallisation sets up the early structure and long-term evolution of terrestrial planets. Recent seismic evidence signals the presence of a silicate layer at the base…
Beyond the mass-radius plane: Integrated radiative-convective and interior structure simulations of the exoplanet continuum
Harrison Nicholls, Oliver Shorttle, Tim Lichtenberg +1
Static structure models, which map mass-radius constraints to bulk planet composition, are frequently used to categorise exoplanets due to their computational efficiency and the hi…
Planetary albedo is limited by the above-cloud atmosphere: Implications for sub-Neptune climate
Sean Jordan, Oliver Shorttle, Sascha P. Quanz
Energy limits that delineate the `habitable zone' for exoplanets depend on a given exoplanet's net planetary albedo (or `Bond albedo'). We here demonstrate that the planetary albed…
Growth and Evolution of Secondary Volcanic Atmospheres: II. The Importance of Kinetics
Philippa Liggins, Sean Jordan, Paul B. Rimmer +1
Volcanism is a major and long-term source of volatile elements such as C and H to Earth's atmosphere, likely has been to Venus's atmosphere, and may be for exoplanets. Models simul…
Host-star and exoplanet compositions: a pilot study usinga wide binary with a polluted white dwarf
Amy Bonsor, Paula Jofre, Oliver Shorttle +3
Planets and stars ultimately form out of the collapse of the same cloud of gas. Whilst planets, and planetary bodies, readily loose volatiles, a common hypothesis is that they reta…
A dry Venusian interior constrained by atmospheric chemistry
Tereza Constantinou, Oliver Shorttle, Paul B. Rimmer
Venus's climatic history provides powerful constraint on the location of the inner-edge of the liquid-water habitable zone. However, two very different histories of water on Venus…
Most Rocky Sub-Neptunes are Molten: Mapping the Solidification Shoreline for Gas Dwarf Exoplanets
Robb Calder, Oliver Shorttle, Harrison Nicholls +2
Sub-Neptunes are the most common type of detected exoplanet, yet their observed masses and radii are degenerate with several interior structures. One possibility is that sub-Neptun…
Powerful lightning on Venus constrained by atmospheric NO
Tereza Constantinou, Oliver Shorttle, Paul B. Rimmer
Signs of lightning on Venus have long been sought, including by space missions and ground-based telescopes searching for optical flashes, plasma waves, or radio signatures. These e…
Ariel Planetary Interiors White Paper
Ravit Helled, Stephanie Werner, Caroline Dorn +10
The recently adopted Ariel ESA mission will measure the atmospheric composition of a large number of exoplanets. This information will then be used to better constrain planetary bu…
Prevalence of short-lived radioactive isotopes across exoplanetary systems inferred from polluted white dwarfs
Alfred Curry, Amy Bonsor, Tim Lichtenberg +1
In the Solar System short-lived radioisotopes, such as 26Al, played a crucial role during the formation planetary bodies by providing a significant additional source of heat. Notab…
Re-accretion of Giant Impact Ejecta Can Drive Significant Atmospheric Erosion on Terrestrial Planets
Tuhin Ghosh, Mark Wyatt, Oliver Shorttle
Giant impacts, the collisions between planetary embryos, play a crucial role in sculpting the planets and their orbital architectures. Numerical simulations have advanced our under…
Enhanced monitoring of atmospheric methane from space over the Permian basin with hierarchical Bayesian inference
Clayton Roberts, Oliver Shorttle, Kaisey Mandel +4
Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, with a higher radiative forcing per unit mass and shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide. The remote sensing of methane in regions of…
Atmospheres as a Window to Rocky Exoplanet Surfaces
Xander Byrne, Oliver Shorttle, Sean Jordan +1
As the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres proceeds, providing insights into atmospheric chemistry and composition, a key question is how much deeper into the planet we might…
The melting column as a filter of mantle trace-element heterogeneity
Tong Bo, Richard F. Katz, Oliver Shorttle +1
The observed variability of trace-element concentration in basaltic lavas and melt inclusions carries information about heterogeneity in the mantle. The difficulty is to disentangl…
Mantle mineralogy limits to rocky planet water inventories
Claire Marie Guimond, Oliver Shorttle, John F. Rudge
Nominally anhydrous minerals in rocky planet mantles can sequester oceans of water as a whole, giving a constraint on bulk water inventories. Here we predict mantle water capacitie…
Hydroxide salts in the clouds of Venus: their effect on the sulfur cycle and cloud droplet pH
Paul B. Rimmer, Sean Jordan, Tereza Constantinou +4
The depletion of SO and HO in and above the clouds of Venus (45 -- 65 km) cannot be explained by known gas-phase chemistry and the observed composition of the atmosphere. W…
The efficient delivery of highly-siderophile elements to the core creates a mass accretion catastrophe for the Earth
Richard J. Anslow, Maylis Landeau, Amy Bonsor +2
The excess abundance of highly siderophile elements (HSEs), as inferred for the terrestrial planets and the Moon, is thought to record a `late veneer' of impacts after the giant im…
Post-main sequence thermal evolution of planetesimals
Yuqi Li, Amy Bonsor, Oliver Shorttle
White dwarfs that have accreted planetary materials provide a powerful tool to probe the interiors and formation of exoplanets. In particular, the high Fe/Si ratio of some white dw…
The distribution of impactor core material during large impacts on Earth-like planets
Jonathan P. Itcovitz, Auriol S. P. Rae, Thomas M. Davison +2
Large impacts onto young rocky planets may transform their compositions, creating highly reducing conditions at their surfaces and reintroducing highly siderophile metals to their…
Cometary impactors on the TRAPPIST-1 planets can destroy all planetary atmospheres and rebuild secondary atmospheres on planets f, g, h
Quentin Kral, Mark C. Wyatt, Amaury H. M. J. Triaud +3
The TRAPPIST-1 system is unique in that it has a chain of seven terrestrial Earth-like planets located close to or in its habitable zone. In this paper, we study the effect of pote…
Distinguishing oceans of water from magma on mini-Neptune K2-18b
Oliver Shorttle, Sean Jordan, Harrison Nicholls +2
Mildly irradiated mini-Neptunes have densities potentially consistent with them hosting substantial liquid water oceans (`Hycean' planets). The presence of CO2 and simultaneous abs…
Planets or asteroids? A geochemical method to constrain the masses of White Dwarf pollutants
Andrew M. Buchan, Amy Bonsor, Oliver Shorttle +4
Polluted white dwarfs that have accreted planetary material provide a unique opportunity to probe the geology of exoplanetary systems. However, the nature of the bodies which pollu…
Prebiosignature Molecules Can Be Detected in Temperate Exoplanet Atmospheres with JWST
Alastair Claringbold, Paul Rimmer, Sarah Rugheimer +1
The search for biosignatures on exoplanets connects the fields of biology and biochemistry to astronomical observation, with the hope that we might detect evidence of active biolog…
Can Volcanism Build Hydrogen-Rich Early Atmospheres?
Philippa Liggins, Oliver Shorttle, Paul B. Rimmer
Hydrogen in rocky planet atmospheres has been invoked in arguments for extending the habitable zone via N2-H2 and CO2-H2 greenhouse warming, and providing atmospheric conditions su…
Sulfur Chemistry in the Atmospheres of Warm and Hot Jupiters
Richard Hobbs, Paul Rimmer, Oliver Shorttle +1
We present and validate a new network of atmospheric thermo-chemical and photo-chemical sulfur reactions. We use a 1-D chemical kinetics model to investigate these reactions as par…
Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs II: volcanism and transits
Yuqi Li, Amy Bonsor, Oliver Shorttle
Planetary material accreted by white dwarfs provides unique insights regarding exoplanetary composition. The evolutionary pathways of planetary bodies around white dwarfs are cruci…
A Surface Hydrothermal Source of Nitriles and Isonitriles
Paul B. Rimmer, Oliver Shorttle
Giant impacts can generate transient hydrogen-rich atmospheres, reducing atmospheric carbon. The reduced carbon will form hazes that rain out onto the surface and can become incorp…
Host-star and exoplanet composition: Polluted white dwarf reveals depletion of moderately refractory elements in planetary material
Claudia Aguilera-Gómez, Laura K. Rogers, Amy Bonsor +6
Planets form from the same cloud of molecular gas and dust as their host stars. Confirming if planetary bodies acquire the same refractory element composition as their natal disc d…
Abiotic Ozone in the Observable Atmospheres of Venus and Venus-like Exoplanets
Robb Calder, Oliver Shorttle, Sean Jordan +2
Ozone is a potential biosignature and disambuguator between Earth-like and Venus-like exoplanets due to its association on Earth with photosynthetically produced oxygen (O). Ho…
Blue marble, stagnant lid: Could dynamic topography avert a waterworld?
Claire Marie Guimond, John Rudge, Oliver Shorttle
Topography on a wet rocky exoplanet could raise land above its sea level. Although land elevation is the product of many complex processes, the large-scale topographic features on…
Microtextures in the Chelyabinsk impact breccia reveal the history of Phosphorus-Olivine-Assemblages in chondrites
Craig R. Walton, Ioannis Baziotis, Ana Äernok +4
The geochemistry and textural associations of chondritic phosphate minerals can provide insights into the geological histories of parental asteroids, but the processes governing th…
Chemical Habitability: Supply and Retention of Life's Essential Elements During Planet Formation
Sebastiaan Krijt, Mihkel Kama, Melissa McClure +5
Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur (CHNOPS) play key roles in the origin and proliferation of life on Earth. Given the universality of physics and chemistry,…
Abundant refractory sulfur in protoplanetary disks
Mihkel Kama, Oliver Shorttle, Adam S. Jermyn +5
Sulfur is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe, with important roles in astro-, geo-, and biochemistry. Its main reservoirs in planet-forming disks have previously elu…
Constraining exoplanet interiors using observations of their atmospheres
Tim Lichtenberg, Oliver Shorttle, Johanna Teske +1
Astronomical surveys have identified numerous exoplanets with bulk compositions that are unlike the planets of the Solar System, including rocky super-Earths and gas-enveloped sub-…
Constraints on the production of phosphine by Venusian volcanoes
William Bains, Oliver Shorttle, Sukrit Ranjan +4
The initial reports of the presence of phosphine in the cloud decks of Venus has led to the suggestion that volcanism was the source of phosphine, through volcanic phosphides eject…
Avoiding methane emission rate underestimates when using the divergence method
Clayton Roberts, Rutger IJzermans, David Randell +5
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and a primary target for mitigating climate change in the short-term future due to its relatively short atmospheric lifetime and greater abili…
Organosulfur Chemistry on sub-Neptunes: Implications for hazes and biosignatures
Sean Jordan, Shang-Min Tsai, Paul B. Rimmer +1
The organosulfur biosignature gases dimethylsulfide (DMS) and dimethlydisulfide (DMDS) have recently been claimed to be present in the atmosphere of sub-Neptune exoplanet K2-18b, l…
Iceline Variations Driven by Protoplanetary Disc Gaps
Madelyn Broome, Oliver Shorttle, Mihkel Kama +1
The composition of forming planets is strongly affected by the protoplanetary disc's thermal structure. This thermal structure is predominantly set by dust radiative transfer and v…
Refractory phosphorus in the HD 100546 protoplanetary disk
Mihkel Kama, Oliver Shorttle, Sandipan P. D. Borthakur +5
The phosphorus budget of planets is intertwined with their formation history and is thought to influence their habitability. The chemical reservoirs and volatile \emph{vs} refracto…
White dwarf constraints on geological processes at the population level
Andrew M. Buchan, Amy Bonsor, Laura K. Rogers +3
White dwarf atmospheres are frequently polluted by material from their own planetary systems. Absorption features from Ca, Mg, Fe and other elements can provide unique insights int…
Ancient and recent collisions revealed by phosphate minerals in the Chelyabinsk meteorite
Craig R. Walton, Oliver Shorttle, Sen Hu +8
The collision history of asteroids is an important archive of inner Solar System evolution. Evidence for these collisions is brought to Earth by meteorites, which can preserve impa…
Growth and evolution of secondary volcanic atmospheres: I. Identifying the geological character of hot rocky planets
Philippa Liggins, Sean Jordan, Paul B. Rimmer +1
The geology of Earth and super-Earth sized planets will, in many cases, only be observable via their atmospheres. Here, we investigate secondary volcanic atmospheres as a key base…
Azimuthal C/O Variations in a Planet-Forming Disk
Luke Keyte, Mihkel Kama, Alice S. Booth +8
The elemental carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) in the atmosphere of a giant planet is a promising diagnostic of that planet's formation history in a protoplanetary disk. Alongside effo…
Proposed energy-metabolisms cannot explain the atmospheric chemistry of Venus
Sean Jordan, Oliver Shorttle, Paul B. Rimmer
Life in the clouds of Venus, if present in sufficiently high abundance, must be affecting the atmospheric chemistry. It has been proposed that abundant Venusian life could obtain e…
From stars to diverse mantles, melts, crusts and atmospheres of rocky exoplanets
Claire Marie Guimond, Haiyang Wang, Fabian Seidler +3
This review is focused on describing the logic by which we make predictions of exoplanetary compositions and mineralogies, and how these processes could lead to compositional diver…
Ariel: Enabling planetary science across light-years
Giovanna Tinetti, Paul Eccleston, Carole Haswell +313
Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. Durin…
Equifinality of Venus-like CO Atmospheres
Tereza Constantinou, Oliver Shorttle, Harrison Nicholls
While Earth locks much of its carbon in its crust as carbonates, Venus retains a comparable carbon inventory almost entirely in its atmosphere as CO. On Earth, the geological c…
Why Geosciences and Exoplanetary Sciences Need Each Other
Oliver Shorttle, Natalie Hinkel, Cayman Unterborn
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets for…