The fates of planetary systems provide unassailable insights into their formation and
represent rich cross-disciplinary dynamical laboratories. Mounting observations of post-main …

Compared to the Earth, the exoplanet Kepler-78b has a similar size (1.2 R⊕) and an orbital
period a thousand times shorter (8.5 h). It is currently the smallest planet for which the mass …

PLATO 2.0 has recently been selected for ESA's M3 launch opportunity (2022/24). Providing
accurate key planet parameters (radius, mass, density and age) in statistical numbers, it …

Hot subluminous stars of spectral type B and O are core helium-burning stars at the blue end
of the horizontal branch or have evolved even beyond that stage. Most hot subdwarf stars …

The determination of exoplanet properties and occurrence rates using Kepler data critically
depends on our knowledge of the fundamental properties (such as temperature, radius, and …

Extremely irradiated hot Jupiters, exoplanets reaching dayside temperatures> 2000 K,
stretch our understanding of planetary atmospheres and the models we use to interpret …

Astrophysicists are increasingly taking into account the effects of orbiting companions on
stellar evolution. New discoveries have underlined the role of binary star interactions in a …

We present the results of a survey aimed at discovering and studying transiting planets with
orbital periods shorter than one day (ultra-short-period, or USP, planets), using data from the …

About ten percent of Sun-like (1–2 M⊙) stars will engulf a 1–10 MJ planet as they expand
during the red giant branch (RGB) or asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase of their evolution …

Atmospheric escape has been detected from the exoplanet HD 209458b through transit
observations of the hydrogen Lyman-α line. Here we present spectrally resolved Lyman-α …