Planetary Physics

Research groups in this theme

Exoplanets

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

We study the fundamental principles underlying the dynamics of planetary atmospheres using numerical models and laboratory experiments.

Planetary Science

Studying geophysical processes throughout our solar system and beyond

People

Suzanne Aigrain

Professor of Astrophysics
Neil Bowles

Professor of Planetary Science
Simon Calcutt

Head of Planetary Experiments
Patrick Irwin

Professor of Planetary Physics
Raymond Pierrehumbert

Halley Professorship of Physics
Peter Read

Professor of Physics
Caroline Terquem

Professor of Physics
Colin Wilson

Senior Research Fellow
Jayne Birkby

Associate Professor of Exoplanetary Science
Juan Alday Parejo

Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Compact Imaging Infrared Radiometer
Oscar Barragan

Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Xianyu Tan

Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Tristram Warren

Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Mitchell Young

Postdoctoral Researcher
Tim Lichtenberg

Postdoctoral Fellow
Maxence Lefevre

Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Kevin Olsen

UKSA Aurora Fellow
Matthias Tecza

HARMONI Instrument Scientist
Ryan Boukrouche

DPhil Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics
Eloïse Brown

Graudate Student
Andrew Bunting

Grad Student
Rowan Curtis

DPhil Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics
Rory Evans

Graduate student
Robert Graham

DPhil student in AOPP
Andrea Hidalgo Valadez

DPhil in Astrophysics (Astronomical instrumentation)
Hamish Innes

2nd Year DPhil Student
Neil Lewis

Graduate Student
Alvaro Menduina

DPhil Student
Jake Taylor

Graduate Student
Lennart van Sluijs

Grad Student
Joost Wardenier

DPhil Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics
Norbert Zicher

Graduate Student
Jon Temple

Technical Specialist - Flight Systems
Louise Nielsen

SNF postdoctoral fellow (visitor)
Vinesh Rajpaul

Visiting researcher
Fred Taylor

Halley Professor of Physics Emeritus

Publications

Characterizing Regimes of Atmospheric Circulation in Terms of Their Global Superrotation
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences American Meteorological Society 78 (2021) 1245-1258
NT Lewis, GJ Colyer, PL Read
The rotational and divergent components of atmospheric circulation on tidally locked planets
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences NAS 118 (2021) e2022705118-e2022705118
M Hammond, NT Lewis
Seasonal reappearance of HCl in the atmosphere of Mars during the Mars year 35 dusty season
Astronomy and Astrophysics EDP Sciences 647 (2021) A161
K Olsen, A Trokhimovskiy, L Montabone et al.
Updates to the Oxford Space Environment Goniometer to measure visible wavelength bidirectional reflectanc...
Review of Scientific Instruments AIP Publishing 92 (2021) 034504
R Curtis, T Warren, N Bowles
Latitudinal variation of methane mole fraction above clouds in Neptune's atmosphere from VLT/MUSE-NFM
Icarus Elsevier 357 (2020) 114277
PGJ Irwin, J Dobinson, A James et al.
A self-lensing binary massive black hole interpretation of quasi-periodic eruptions
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 503 (2021) 1703-1716
A Ingram, S Motta, S Aigrain et al.
TESS Re-observes the Young Multi-planet System TOI-451: Refined Ephemeris and Activity Evolution
Research Notes of the AAS American Astronomical Society 5 (2021) 51-51
O Barragán, S Aigrain, E Gillen et al.
Planet Hunters TESS II: Findings from the first two years of TESS
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 501 (2020) staa3739
N Eisner, O Barragán, C Lintott et al.
Vertically resolved magma ocean–protoatmosphere evolution
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets American Geophysical Union (2021)
T Lichtenberg, DJ Bower, M Hammond et al.
Transient HCl in the atmosphere of Mars.
Science advances 7 (2021)
O Korablev, KS Olsen, A Trokhimovskiy et al.
Atmospheric circulation of brown dwarfs and directly imaged exoplanets driven by cloud radiative feedback...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (2021)
X Tan, AP Showman
The vertical structure of CO in the Martian atmosphere from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter
NATURE GEOSCIENCE 14 (2021)
KS Olsen, F Lefevre, F Montmessin et al.
Spectral Characterization of Bennu Analogs Using PASCALE
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 126 (2021)
KL Donaldson Hanna, NE Bowles, TJ Warren et al.
Atmospheric circulation of brown dwarfs and directly imaged exoplanets driven by cloud radiative feedback...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 502 (2021) 678-699
X Tan, AP Showman
Bifurcation of planetary building blocks during Solar System formation.
Science (New York, N.Y.) 371 (2021) 365-370
T Lichtenberg, J Drazkowska, M Schönbächler et al.
Potential vorticity structure of Titan’s polar vortices from Cassini CIRS observations
Icarus Elsevier BV (2020) 114030
J Sharkey, NA Teanby, M Sylvestre et al.
Neptune’s HCl upper limit from Herschel/HIFI
Icarus Elsevier 354 (2020) 114045
N Teanby, B Gould, PGJ Irwin
The Oxford Magnetic Suspension and Balance System: a brief history & development status
AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2021)
M Tombs, N Donaldson, L Doherty et al.
Tidally induced stellar oscillations
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) (2021)
A Bunting, C TERQUEM
Martian cloud climatology and life cycle extracted from Mars Express OMEGA spectral images
Icarus 353 (2021)
A Szantai, J Audouard, F Forget et al.
Introduction to Icarus special issue “From Mars Express to ExoMars”
Icarus Elsevier (2020)
MA Lopez-Valverde, DV Titov, CF Wilson
Retrieval of the water ice column and physical properties of water-ice clouds in the martian atmosphere u...
Icarus 353 (2021)
KS Olsen, F Forget, JB Madeleine et al.
Spatial variations in the altitude of the CH4 Homopause at Jupiter’s mid-to-high latitudes, as constraine...
The Planetary Science Journal IOP Publishing 1 (2020) 85
JA Sinclair, TK Greathouse, RS Giles et al.
Neptune and Uranus: ice or rock giants?
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences Royal Society 378 (2020) 20190489
N Teanby, P Irwin, J Moses et al.
Revealing the Intensity of Turbulent Energy Transfer in Planetary Atmospheres
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 47 (2020) ARTN e2020GL088685
S Cabanes, S Espa, B Galperin et al.
Wintertime Southern Hemisphere jet streams shaped by interaction of transient eddies with Antarctic orogr...
Journal of Climate Wiley 33 (2020) 10505-10522
M Patterson, T Woollings, T Bracegirdle et al.
Colour and tropospheric cloud structure of Jupiter from MUSE/VLT: retrieving a universal chromophore
Icarus Elsevier 338 (2020) 113589
AS Braude, P Irwin, GS Orton et al.
Atmospheric dynamics of hot giant planets and brown dwarfs
Space Science Reviews Springer 216 (2020) 139
AP Showman, X Tan, V Parmentier
Color and aerosol changes in Jupiter after a North Temperate Belt disturbance
Icarus Elsevier BV 352 (2020) 114031
S Pérez-Hoyos, A Sánchez-Lavega, J Sanz-Requena et al.
The turbulent dynamics of Jupiter's and Saturn's weather layers: order out of chaos?
GEOSCIENCE LETTERS 7 (2020) ARTN 10
PL Read, RMB Young, D Kennedy
Detection of CH3C3N in Titan’s Atmosphere
The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 903 (2020) L22-L22
AE Thelen, MA Cordiner, CA Nixon et al.
Prospects for characterizing the haziest sub-Neptune exoplanets with high-resolution spectroscopy
Astronomical Journal IOP Publishing 160 (2020) 160-198
CE Hood, JJ Fortney, MR Line et al.
Detection of Cyclopropenylidene on Titan with ALMA
The Astronomical Journal American Astronomical Society 160 (2020) 205-205
CA Nixon, AE Thelen, MA Cordiner et al.
Author Correction: Shape of (101955) Bennu indicative of a rubble pile with internal stiffness (Nature Ge...
Nature Geoscience 13 (2020) 764-
OS Barnouin, MG Daly, EE Palmer et al.
Hydrological Cycle Changes Explain Weak Snowball Earth Storm Track Despite Increased Surface Baroclinicit...
Geophysical Research Letters 47 (2020)
T Shaw, R Graham
Atmospheric circulation of tidally locked gas giants with increasing rotation and implications for white ...
Astrophysical Journal 902 (2020)
X Tan, AP Showman
Atmospheric circulation of tidally locked gas giants with increasing rotation and implications for white-...
Astrophysical Journal IOP Publishing 902 (2020) 27
X Tan, AP Showman
The Phase-curve Signature of Condensible Water-rich Atmospheres on Slowly Rotating Tidally Locked Exoplan...
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS 901 (2020) ARTN L33
F Ding, RT Pierrehumbert
C2N2 vertical profile in Titan’s stratosphere
Astronomical Journal IOP Publishing 160 (2020) 178
M Sylvestre, N Teanby, M Dobrijevic et al.
Simulating gas kinematic studies of high-redshift galaxies with the HARMONI integral field spectrograph
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 498 (2020) 1891-1904
MLA Richardson, L Routledge, N Thatte et al.
The Equatorial Jet Speed on Tidally Locked Planets. I. Terrestrial Planets
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL 901 (2020) ARTN 78
M Hammond, S-M Tsai, RT Pierrehumbert
Studying the Composition and Mineralogy of the Hermean Surface with the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal In...
Space Science Reviews 216 (2020)
H Hiesinger, J Helbert, G Alemanno et al.
Non-local thermodynamic equilibrium transmission spectrum modelling of HD 209458b
Astronomy & Astrophysics EDP Sciences 641 (2020) A47-A47
ME Young, L Fossati, TT Koskinen et al.
Continuous structural parameterization
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems American Geophysical Union 12 (2020) e2020MS002085
F Lambert, P Challenor, N Lewis et al.
Simplified 3D GCM modelling of the irradiated brown dwarf WD 0137−349B
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 496 (2020) 4674-4687
GKH Lee, SL Casewell, KL Chubb et al.
First detection of ozone in the mid-infrared at Mars: implications for methane detection
Astronomy & Astrophysics EDP Sciences 639 (2020) A141
K Olsen, F Lefèvre, F Montmessin et al.
Spatial structure in Neptune’s 7.90-m stratospheric CH emission, as measured by VLT-VISIR
Icarus Elsevier 345 (2020) 113748
J Sinclair, G Orton, L Fletcher et al.
Uranus in Northern Mid-spring: Persistent Atmospheric Temperatures and Circulations Inferred from Thermal...
ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL American Astronomical Society 160 (2020) ARTN 56
MT Roman, LN Fletcher, GS Orton et al.
Pleiades or Not? Resolving the Status of the Lithium-rich M Dwarfs HHJ 339 and HHJ 430
Astronomical Journal American Astronomical Society 160 (2020) 30
J Stauffer, D Barrado, T David et al.
Thermodynamic and energetic limits on continental silicate weathering strongly impact the climate and hab...
Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 896 (2020) 115
R Graham, R Pierrehumbert
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