TY - JOUR
T1 - Giant Planets
T2 - Good Neighbors for Habitable Worlds?
AU - Georgakarakos, Nikolaos
AU - Eggl, Siegfried
AU - Dobbs-Dixon, Ian
N1 - Funding Information:
This research has received funding from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory through the California Institute of Technology postdoctoral fellowship program, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA, as well as the IMCCE Observatoire de Paris, France. The authors have used the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank the High Performance Computing Resources team at New York University Abu Dhabi and especially Jorge Naranjo for helping us with certain aspects of the evaluation of the habitable zones.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..
PY - 2018/4/1
Y1 - 2018/4/1
N2 - The presence of giant planets influences potentially habitable worlds in numerous ways. Massive celestial neighbors can facilitate the formation of planetary cores and modify the influx of asteroids and comets toward Earth analogs later on. Furthermore, giant planets can indirectly change the climate of terrestrial worlds by gravitationally altering their orbits. Investigating 147 well-characterized exoplanetary systems known to date that host a main-sequence star and a giant planet, we show that the presence of "giant neighbors" can reduce a terrestrial planet's chances to remain habitable, even if both planets have stable orbits. In a small fraction of systems, however, giant planets slightly increase the extent of habitable zones provided that the terrestrial world has a high climate inertia. In providing constraints on where giant planets cease to affect the habitable zone size in a detrimental fashion, we identify prime targets in the search for habitable worlds.
AB - The presence of giant planets influences potentially habitable worlds in numerous ways. Massive celestial neighbors can facilitate the formation of planetary cores and modify the influx of asteroids and comets toward Earth analogs later on. Furthermore, giant planets can indirectly change the climate of terrestrial worlds by gravitationally altering their orbits. Investigating 147 well-characterized exoplanetary systems known to date that host a main-sequence star and a giant planet, we show that the presence of "giant neighbors" can reduce a terrestrial planet's chances to remain habitable, even if both planets have stable orbits. In a small fraction of systems, however, giant planets slightly increase the extent of habitable zones provided that the terrestrial world has a high climate inertia. In providing constraints on where giant planets cease to affect the habitable zone size in a detrimental fashion, we identify prime targets in the search for habitable worlds.
KW - astrobiology
KW - celestial mechanics
KW - planets and satellites: atmospheres
KW - planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability
KW - planets and satellites: terrestrial planets
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/aaaf72
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/aaaf72
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045567025
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 856
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2
M1 - 155
ER -