Books in the Advances In Planetary Science series

Thanks to NASA's Dawn mission, the last half-decade has witnessed a significant advance in our understanding of Ceres.

Astrophysical research has led to the detection of thousands of planets outside the Solar System. About one-tenth of the extrasolar planets discovered so far reside in binary- or multi-stellar systems, and some of the closest known rocky exoplanets populate these multiple-star systems. While such environments seem good places to look for a second Earth, can Earth-like planets with two or more suns be habitable? And do solar system-like configurations have to be detected to find a habitable exo-Earth?This book addresses these questions. Starting with a brief overview of the various types of double star-planet configurations that have been observed so far, the book discusses the intriguing variety of planetary motion in such environments, taking into account the stellar type, evolution, and activity, and elaborates on how the presence of an additional stellar companion affects planet formation, system architectures and the habitability of planets in binary star systems. New methodologies developed in this area of research are explained and demonstrated for systems such as Alpha-Centauri, HD41004, Kepler-35, and many others. This monograph provides a grand entry to the exciting results that we expect from new missions like TESS, CHEOPS and Plato.

The search for exoplanets and habitable objects in general is one of the fastest growing and most prominent fields in modern astrophysics. This book provides an overview on habitability on exoplanets. Habitability is strongly dependent on stellar activity. Therefore, space weather effects on objects in the solar system as well as on exoplanets are discussed.The concept of the book is to introduce the topics and then discuss actual scientific papers so that the interested reader has access to most recent research. Therefore the book is valuable to undergraduate students as well as to graduate students and researchers.

Since several decades, comets have been considered as key witnesses of solar system formation. Their nature has been explored using the modern arsenal of Earth- and space-based observations, and they hold a central place as dynamical arbiters of the planetary system in the new paradigm of solar system evolution known as the Nice Model. Thus, they have the potential to test the various ideas, using the detailed data recently gathered by the ESA/Rosetta mission. This requires an understanding of their origin and evolution, which form the subject of the present book. All the relevant issues are covered, describing both the background and the current frontiers of research.

Nuclear planetary science has come to play an important role in our understanding of the origin and evolution of the planetary bodies in our solar system. A newly established branch of planetary science, its study aids in humankind's exploration of the present states of the structures of various planetary bodies (including the Earth), their atmospheres and their satellites, as well as small celestial bodies (e.g. asteroids), through direct observation. Knowing the elemental composition of the planetary bodies is essential in order to understand the formation and evolution of planetary bodies — just as important as it is to know the mass, radius, density and orbit of the celestial body.Suitable for students and specialists interested in the much wider field of Earth and Planetary Science, topics related to the planets and asteroids in the solar system are dealt with in this book. Techniques related to nuclear planetary science's nuclear cosmochemical and geological methods are also covered in this book.