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Astronomy Seminar

Speaker: Isabelle Baraffe (University of Exeter)

Title: Journey to the Centre of an Exoplanet

Abstract:

I will describe our present understanding and current modelling of the internal structure and evolution of planets outside our solar system, the so-called Extra-solar planets. The detection of transiting planets around their parent
star allows the determination of their mass and radius, and thus of their mean density. Such valuable information indicates that a significant fraction of these planets are enriched in heavy elements (ice, rocks), as observed in the giant planets of our Solar System. The treatment of heavy materials in planetary interiors and the resulting uncertainties on the mass-radius relationship will be discussed. I will also address the case of short-period, strongly irradiated planets and discuss some of the physical mechanisms which have been suggested to explain a puzzling property characterising those planets, namely an anomalously large radius.