Post-Capture Evolution of Potentially Habitable Exomoons

Abstract

The satellites of extrasolar planets (exomoons) have been recently proposed as astrobiological targets. Since giant planets in the habitable zone are thought to have migrated there, it is possible that they may have captured a former terrestrial planet or planetesimal. We therefore attempt to model the dynamical evolution of a terrestrial planet captured into orbit around a giant planet in the habitable zone of a star. We find that approximately half of loose elliptical orbits result in stable circular orbits over timescales of less than a few million years. We also find that those orbits are mostly low-inclination, but have no prograde/retrograde preference. In addition, we calculate the transit timing and duration variations for the resulting systems, and find that potentially habitable Earth-mass exomoons should be detectable.

5 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted to ApJ Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Characteristics of planetary candidates observed by Kepler, II: Analysis of the first four months of data
• The Exoplanet Orbit Database
• Transit timing effects due to an exomoon

Cited by in corpus (33)

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• Formation, Habitability, and Detection of Extrasolar Moons
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• The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK): II. Analysis of Seven Viable Satellite-Hosting Planet Candidates
• The McDonald Observatory Planet Search: New Long-Period Giant Planets, and Two Interacting Jupiters in the HD 155358 System
• An Exomoon Survey of 70 Cool Giant Exoplanets and the New Candidate Kepler-1708 b-i
• Exomoon habitability constrained by energy flux and orbital stability
• On the detection of Exomoons: A search in Kepler data for the orbital sampling effect and the scatter peak
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• The effect of planet-planet scattering on the survival of exomoons
• The Habitable Zone and Extreme Planetary Orbits
• How to determine an exomoon's sense of orbital motion
• The detectability of habitable exomoons with Kepler
• Dynamical Effects on the Habitable Zone for Earth-like Exomoons
• Conditions for water ice lines and Mars-mass exomoons around accreting super-Jovian planets at 1 - 20 AU from Sun-like stars
• Exomoon Habitability and Tidal Evolution in Low-Mass Star Systems
• The nature of the giant exomoon candidate Kepler-1625 b-i
• The SOPHIE search for northern extrasolar planets. XI. Three new companions and an orbit update: Giant planets in the habitable zone
• On the radio detection of multiple-exomoon systems due to plasma torus sharing
• The Effect of Multiple Heat Sources on Exomoon Habitable Zones
• Origin and Stability of Exomoon Atmospheres - Implications for Habitability
• Formation of Exomoons: A Solar System Perspective
• Transit Origami: A Method to Coherently Fold Exomoon Transits in Time Series Photometry
• Kepler-1708 b-i is likely undetectable with HST
• Below One Earth Mass: The Detection, Formation, and Properties of Subterrestrial Worlds
• The "Drake equation" of exomoons -- a cascade of formation, stability and detection
• Updated Studies on Exomoons in the HD 23079 System
• Constraints on the habitability of extrasolar moons
• Search for possible exomoons with FAST telescope
• Forming Massive Terrestrial Satellites through Binary-Exchange Capture
• The effect of post-Newtonian spin precessions on the evolution of exomoons' obliquity
• Astrophysical Simulations and Data Analyses on the Formation, Detection, and Habitability of Moons Around Extrasolar Planets