Publications (76)
New evidence for wet accretion of inner solar system planetesimals from meteorites Chelyabinsk andBenenitra
Ziliang Jin, Maitrayee Bose, Tim Lichtenberg +1
We investigated the hydrogen isotopic compositions and water contents of pyroxenes in two recent ordinary chondrite falls, namely, Chelyabinsk (2013 fall) and Benenitra (2018 fall)…
Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE): II. Signal simulation, signal extraction and fundamental exoplanet parameters from single epoch observations
Felix Dannert, Maurice Ottiger, Sascha P. Quanz +13
The Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) initiative is developing the science and a technology roadmap for an ambitious space mission featuring a space-based mid-infrared (MI…
Atmospheric evolution through outgassing and escape on young molten rocky exoplanets
Emma Postolec, Tim Lichtenberg, Harrison Nicholls +2
The paper models how outgassing from a cooling magma ocean and atmospheric escape together shape the early atmospheres of rocky exoplanets, exploring how factors like stellar type,…
Devolatilization of extrasolar planetesimals by 60Fe and 26Al heating
Joseph W. Eatson, Tim Lichtenberg, Richard J. Parker +1
Whilst the formation of Solar system planets is constrained by meteoritic evidence, the geophysical history of low-mass exoplanets is much less clear. The bulk composition and clim…
Volatile-rich evolution of molten super-Earth L 98-59 d
Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg, Richard D. Chatterjee +3
Small low-density exoplanets are sculpted by strong stellar irradiation, but their primordial compositions and subsequent evolution are still unknown. Two often-considered scenario…
Sulfur photochemistry observationally traces mantle redox states of rocky planets
Ioannis Panagiotou, Tim Lichtenberg, Shang-Min Tsai +1
The study models how sulfur chemistry in rocky exoplanet atmospheres reflects the redox state of their mantles, showing that photochemical signatures of SO2 are detectable with JWS…
Direct imaging of molten protoplanets in nearby young stellar associations
Irene Bonati, Tim Lichtenberg, Dan J Bower +2
During their formation and early evolution, rocky planets undergo multiple global melting events due to accretionary collisions with other protoplanets. The detection and character…
Atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets in the mid-infrared: biosignatures, habitability & diversity
Sascha P. Quanz, Olivier Absil, Daniel Angerhausen +45
Exoplanet science is one of the most thriving fields of modern astrophysics. A major goal is the atmospheric characterization of dozens of small, terrestrial exoplanets in order to…
Bifurcation of planetary building blocks during Solar System formation
Tim Lichtenberg, Joanna Drazkowska, Maria Schönbächler +2
Geochemical and astronomical evidence demonstrate that planet formation occurred in two spatially and temporally separated reservoirs. The origin of this dichotomy is unknown. We u…
Planetesimal Formation Across the Stellar Mass Spectrum and its Influence on Exoplanet-Inherited Volatile Budgets
Joe Williams, Sebastiaan Krijt, Joanna DrÄ Å¼kowska +1
Protoplanetary discs emerging from collapsing molecular clouds are capable of forming planetesimals at the water snowline during both the cloud collapse and Class II disc phases; s…
Impact splash chondrule formation during planetesimal recycling
Tim Lichtenberg, Gregor J. Golabek, Cornelis P. Dullemond +3
Chondrules are the dominant bulk silicate constituent of chondritic meteorites and originate from highly energetic, local processes during the first million years after the birth o…
Coupled atmospHere Interior modeL Intercomparison (CHILI) Protocol Version 1.0: A CUISINES Intercomparison Project of Magma Ocean Models
Tim Lichtenberg, Laura Schaefer, Joshua Krissansen-Totton +23
Spectroscopic characterization of rocky exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope has brought the origin and evolution of their atmospheres into the focus of exoplanet science…
Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). XIV. Finding terrestrial protoplanets in the galactic neighborhood
Lorenzo Cesario, Tim Lichtenberg, Eleonora Alei +62
The increased brightness temperature of young rocky protoplanets during their magma ocean epoch makes them potentially amenable to atmospheric characterization to distances from th…
A Thick Volatile Atmosphere on the Ultrahot Super-Earth TOI-561 b
Johanna K. Teske, Nicole L. Wallack, Anjali A. A. Piette +10
Ultrashort-period (USP) exoplanets -- with R and periods 1 day -- are expected to be stripped of volatile atmospheres by intense host star irradiation…
Bioverse: Potentially Observable Exoplanet Biosignature Patterns Under the UV Threshold Hypothesis for the Origin of Life
Martin Schlecker, Dániel Apai, Antonin Affholder +5
A wide variety of scenarios for the origin of life have been proposed, with many influencing the prevalence and distribution of biosignatures across exoplanet populations. This rel…
A roadmap for the atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets with JWST
TRAPPIST-1 JWST Community Initiative, :, Julien de Wit +80
Ultra-cool dwarf stars are abundant, long-lived, and uniquely suited to enable the atmospheric study of transiting terrestrial companions with JWST. Amongst them, the most prominen…
Late metal-silicate separation on the IAB parent asteroid: Constraints from combined W and Pt isotopes and thermal modelling
Alison C. Hunt, David L. Cook, Tim Lichtenberg +4
The short-lived Hf-W decay system is a powerful chronometer for constraining the timing of metal-silicate separation and core formation in planetesimals and planets…
Magma ascent in planetesimals: control by grain size
Tim Lichtenberg, Tobias Keller, Richard F. Katz +2
Rocky planetesimals in the early solar system melted internally and evolved chemically due to radiogenic heating from Al-26. Here we quantify the parametric controls on magma genes…
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…
Community Report from the Biosignatures Standards of Evidence Workshop
Victoria Meadows, Heather Graham, Victor Abrahamsson +72
The search for life beyond the Earth is the overarching goal of the NASA Astrobiology Program, and it underpins the science of missions that explore the environments of Solar Syste…
Beyond runaway: initiation of the post-runaway greenhouse state on rocky exoplanets
Ryan Boukrouche, Tim Lichtenberg, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert
The runaway greenhouse represents the ultimate climate catastrophe for rocky, Earth-like worlds: when the incoming stellar flux cannot be balanced by radiation to space, the oceans…
Hemispheric Tectonics on super-Earth LHS 3844b
Tobias G. Meier, Dan J. Bower, Tim Lichtenberg +2
The tectonic regime of rocky planets fundamentally influences their long-term evolution and cycling of volatiles between interior and atmosphere. Earth is the only known planet wit…
Leaky dust traps: How fragmentation impacts dust filtering by planets
Sebastian Markus Stammler, Tim Lichtenberg, Joanna DrÄ Å¼kowska +1
The nucleosynthetic isotope dichotomy between carbonaceous (CC) and non-carbonaceous (NC) meteorites has been interpreted as evidence for spatial separation and the coexistence of…
Absence of a Runaway Greenhouse Limit on Lava Planets
Iris D. Boer, Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg
Climate transitions on exoplanets offer valuable insights into the atmospheric processes governing planetary habitability. Previous pure-steam atmospheric models show a thermal lim…
Redox hysteresis of super-Earth exoplanets from magma ocean circulation
Tim Lichtenberg
Internal redox reactions may irreversibly alter the mantle composition and volatile inventory of terrestrial and super-Earth exoplanets and affect the prospects for atmospheric obs…
Isotopic enrichment of forming planetary systems from supernova pollution
Tim Lichtenberg, Richard J. Parker, Michael R. Meyer
Heating by short-lived radioisotopes (SLRs) such as aluminum-26 and iron-60 fundamentally shaped the thermal history and interior structure of Solar System planetesimals during the…
Reliable Detections of Atmospheres on Rocky Exoplanets with Photometric JWST Phase Curves
Mark Hammond, Claire Marie Guimond, Tim Lichtenberg +9
The prevalence of atmospheres on rocky planets is one of the major questions in exoplanet astronomy, but there are currently no published unambiguous detections of atmospheres on a…
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…
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…
Super-Earths and Earth-like Exoplanets
Tim Lichtenberg, Yamila Miguel
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics…
A water budget dichotomy of rocky protoplanets from Al-heating
Tim Lichtenberg, Gregor J. Golabek, Remo Burn +4
In contrast to the water-poor inner solar system planets, stochasticity during planetary formation and order of magnitude deviations in exoplanet volatile contents suggest that roc…
Water enrichment of forming sub-Neptune envelopes limited by oxygen exhaustion
Tadahiro Kimura, Tim Lichtenberg
The interaction between a magma ocean and a primordial atmosphere is increasingly recognized as a key process in shaping planetary envelope compositions. This coupling should stron…
Photoevaporation versus enrichment in the cradle of the Sun
Miti Patel, Cheyenne K. M. Polius, Matthew Ridsdill-Smith +2
The presence of short-lived radioisotopes (SLRs) 26-Al and 60-Fe in the Solar system places constraints on the initial conditions of our planetary system. Most theories posit that…
Coupled atmospHere Interior modeL Intercomparison (CHILI). I. Evolutionary Modelling -- Primordial Magma Oceans of Earth and Venus
Harrison Nicholls, Joshua Krissansen-Totton, Tim Lichtenberg +22
Earth and Venus represent two evolutionary outcomes arising from initially molten 'magma ocean' periods, followed by lifetimes of chemical and geophysical divergence. Their physics…
Magma ocean evolution at arbitrary redox state
Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg, Dan J. Bower +1
Interactions between magma oceans and overlying atmospheres on young rocky planets leads to an evolving feedback of outgassing, greenhouse forcing, and mantle melt fraction. Previo…
Planet formation: The case for large efforts on the computational side
Wladimir Lyra, Thomas Haworth, Bertram Bitsch +54
Modern astronomy has finally been able to observe protoplanetary disks in reasonable resolution and detail, unveiling the processes happening during planet formation. These observe…
Imaging of exocomets with infrared interferometry
Markus Janson, Jayshil Patel, Simon C. Ringqvist +6
Active comets have been detected in several exoplanetary systems, although so far only indirectly, when the dust or gas in the extended coma has transited in front of the stellar d…
Onset of habitable conditions on the Hadean Earth set by feedback between tides and greenhouse forcing
Marijn R. van Dijk, Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg
In the aftermath of the Moon-forming giant impact, the Hadean Earth's mantle and surface crystallized from a global magma ocean blanketed by a dense volatile-rich atmosphere. While…
Geodynamics of super-Earth GJ 486b
Tobias G. Meier, Dan J. Bower, Tim Lichtenberg +8
Many super-Earths are on very short orbits around their host star and, therefore, more likely to be tidally locked. Because this locking can lead to a strong contrast between the d…
Short-lived radioisotope enrichment in star-forming regions from stellar winds and supernovae
Richard J. Parker, Tim Lichtenberg, Miti Patel +2
The abundance of the short-lived radioisotopes 26-Al and 60-Fe in the early Solar system is usually explained by the Sun either forming from pre-enriched material, or the Sun's pro…
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…
Rocky planet or water world? Observability of low-density lava world atmospheres
Anjali A. A. Piette, Peter Gao, Kara Brugman +4
Super-Earths span a wide range of bulk densities, indicating a diversity in interior conditions beyond that seen in the solar system. In particular, an emerging population of low-d…
The effects of short-lived radionuclides and porosity on the early thermo-mechanical evolution of planetesimals
Tim Lichtenberg, Gregor J. Golabek, Taras V. Gerya +1
The thermal history and internal structure of chondritic planetesimals, assembled before the giant impact phase of chaotic growth, potentially yield important implications for the…
Reflation: redox-driven atmospheric inflation as tracer of super-Earth geochemistry
Lorenzo Cesario, Tim Lichtenberg, Mara Attia +3
The paper proposes that the redox state of a super‑Earth’s mantle can cause a temporary re‑inflation of its atmosphere by shifting outgassed volatiles from carbon‑rich to hydrogen‑…
Was Planet 9 captured in the Sun's natal star-forming region?
Richard J. Parker, Tim Lichtenberg, Sascha P. Quanz
The presence of an unseen `Planet 9' on the outskirts of the Solar system has been invoked to explain the unexpected clustering of the orbits of several Edgeworth--Kuiper Belt Obje…
Geophysical Evolution During Rocky Planet Formation
Tim Lichtenberg, Laura K. Schaefer, Miki Nakajima +1
Progressive astronomical characterization of planet-forming disks and rocky exoplanets highlight the need for increasing interdisciplinary efforts to understand the birth and life…
System-level fractionation of carbon from disk and planetesimal processing
Tim Lichtenberg, Sebastiaan Krijt
Finding and characterizing extrasolar Earth analogs will rely on interpretation of the planetary system's environmental context. The total budget and fractionation between C-H-O sp…
Modeling gravitational instabilities in self-gravitating protoplanetary disks with adaptive mesh refinement techniques
Tim Lichtenberg, Dominik R. G. Schleicher
The astonishing diversity in the observed planetary population requires theoretical efforts and advances in planet formation theories. Numerical approaches provide a method to tack…
The Goldilocks problem for detecting water in terrestrial planets: Constraining water abundances in the mid-IR with LIFE
Sarah Rugheimer, Eleonora Alei, Björn S. Konrad +7
We investigate how well the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) mission concept can detect habitable conditions on exoplanets through the presence of atmospheric water vapor…
Mantle Convection and Nightside Volcanism on Lava World K2-141 b
Tobias G. Meier, Claire Marie Guimond, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert +13
Ultra-short period lava worlds offer a unique window into the coupled evolution of planetary interior and atmospheres under extreme irradiation. In this study, we investigate the m…
Tides on Lava Worlds: Application to Close-in Exoplanets and the Early Earth-Moon System
Mohammad Farhat, Pierre Auclair-Desrotour, Gwenaël Boué +2
Understanding the physics of planetary magma oceans has been the subject of growing efforts, in light of the increasing abundance of Solar system samples and extrasolar surveys. A…
Vertically resolved magma ocean-protoatmosphere evolution: H, HO, CO, CH, CO, O, and N as primary absorbers
Tim Lichtenberg, Dan J. Bower, Mark Hammond +4
The earliest atmospheres of rocky planets originate from extensive volatile release during magma ocean epochs that occur during assembly of the planet. These establish the initial…
PALEOS: Multiphase equations of state and mass-radius relations for exoplanet interiors
Mara Attia, Tim Lichtenberg, Ema Jungová +1
Modeling the interior of a rocky or water-rich exoplanet is a thermodynamic closure problem: every layer's density, temperature gradient, and phase must follow from an equation of…
Astrobites as a Community-led Model for Education, Science Communication, and Accessibility in Astrophysics
Gourav Khullar, Susanna Kohler, Tarini Konchady +21
Support for early career astronomers who are just beginning to explore astronomy research is imperative to increase retention of diverse practitioners in the field. Since 2010, Ast…
Magma ocean interactions can explain JWST observations of the sub-Neptune TOI-270 d
Matthew C. Nixon, R. Sander Somers, Arjun B. Savel +9
Sub-Neptunes with substantial atmospheres may possess magma oceans in contact with the overlying gas, with chemical interactions between the atmosphere and magma playing an importa…
Identifying rocky planets and water worlds among sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets with the Habitable Worlds Observatory
Renyu Hu, Michiel Min, Max Millar-Blanchaer +15
Astronomers are debating whether the plentiful "sub-Neptune" exoplanets -- worlds a bit larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune -- are predominantly rocky planets, water-rich "o…
Constraining the lives and times of exoplanets through evolutionary Bayesian retrievals
Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg, Ben Riegler +2
The paper introduces a Bayesian retrieval framework that models the time‑evolution of exoplanet interiors and atmospheres, allowing constraints on their formation histories and vol…
Interior dynamics of super-Earth 55 Cancri e
Tobias G. Meier, Dan J. Bower, Tim Lichtenberg +2
The ultra-short-period super-Earth 55 Cancri e has a measured radius of 1.8 Earth radii. Previous thermal phase curve observations suggest a strong temperature contrast between the…
The PLATO Mission
Heike Rauer, Conny Aerts, Juan Cabrera +842
PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA's M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large numb…
Characterizing the oxidation state of rocky exoplanets with the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE)
Lorenzo Cesario, Tim Lichtenberg, Michiel Min +5
The paper evaluates the capability of the proposed LIFE space-based mid-infrared nulling interferometer to detect redox‑sensitive gases in Earth‑sized exoplanet atmospheres and the…
Self-limited tidal heating and prolonged magma oceans in the L 98-59 system
Harrison Nicholls, Claire Marie Guimond, Hamish C. F. C. Hay +3
Rocky exoplanets accessible to characterisation often lie on close-in orbits where tidal heating within their interiors is significant, with the L 98-59 planetary system being a pr…
AGNI: A radiative-convective model for lava planet atmospheres
Harrison Nicholls, Raymond Pierrehumbert, Tim Lichtenberg
It is important that we are able to accurately model the atmospheres of (exo)planets. This is because atmospheres play a central role in setting a planet's thermochemical environme…
A multispecies pseudoadiabat for simulating condensable-rich exoplanet atmospheres
R. J. Graham, Tim Lichtenberg, Ryan Boukrouche +1
Central stages in the evolution of rocky, potentially habitable planets may play out under atmospheric conditions with a large inventory of non-dilute condensable components. Varia…
A Terminology and Quantitative Framework for Assessing the Habitability of Solar System and Extraterrestrial Worlds
Daniel Apai, Rory Barnes, Matthew M. Murphy +13
The search for extraterrestrial life in the Solar System and beyond is a key science driver in astrobiology, planetary science, and astrophysics. A critical step is the identificat…
Bioverse: The Habitable Zone Inner Edge Discontinuity as an Imprint of Runaway Greenhouse Climates on Exoplanet Demographics
Martin Schlecker, Dániel Apai, Tim Lichtenberg +3
Long-term magma ocean phases on rocky exoplanets orbiting closer to their star than the runaway greenhouse threshold - the inner edge of the classical habitable zone - may offer in…
The distribution of volatile elements during rocky planet formation
Terry-Ann Suer, Colin Jackson, Damanveer S. Grewal +2
Core segregation and atmosphere formation are two of the major processes that redistribute the volatile elements-hydrogen (H), carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S)-in and aroun…
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-…
Convective shutdown in the atmospheres of lava worlds
Harrison Nicholls, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Tim Lichtenberg +2
Atmospheric energy transport is central to the cooling of primordial magma oceans. Theoretical studies of atmospheres on lava planets have assumed that convection is the only proce…
Geophysical and atmospheric implications of O-dependent melting on rocky exoplanets
Mariana Sastre, Tim Lichtenberg, Laurent Soucasse +3
The geochemical evolution of long-lived magma oceans is strongly regulated by volatile exchange between the molten mantle and the atmosphere. For planets inside the runaway-greenho…
Reduced late bombardment on rocky exoplanets around M-dwarfs
Tim Lichtenberg, Matthew S. Clement
Ocean-vaporizing impacts of chemically reduced planetesimals onto the early Earth have been suggested to catalyse atmospheric production of reduced nitrogen compounds and trigger p…
Hidden water in magma ocean exoplanets
Caroline Dorn, Tim Lichtenberg
We demonstrate that the deep volatile storage capacity of magma oceans has significant implications for the bulk composition, interior and climate state inferred from exoplanet mas…
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…
CO ocean bistability on terrestrial exoplanets
R. J. Graham, Tim Lichtenberg, Ray Pierrehumbert
Cycling of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and interior of rocky planets can stabilize global climate and enable planetary surface temperatures above freezing over geologic t…
Database of Candidate Targets for the LIFE Mission
Franziska Menti, José A. Caballero, Mark C. Wyatt +11
We present the database of potential targets for the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE), a space-based mid-infrared nulling interferometer mission proposed for the Voyage 2…
Inferring Shallow Surfaces on sub-Neptune Exoplanets with JWST
Shang-Min Tsai, Hamish Innes, Tim Lichtenberg +4
Planets smaller than Neptune and larger than Earth make up the majority of the discovered exoplanets. Those with H-rich atmospheres are prime targets for atmospheric characteri…