Probing the Origin of Water in Planets within Habitable Zones by HWO

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hasegawa, Yasuhiro, Dressing, Courtney, Carone, Ludmila
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hasegawa, Yasuhiro
Dressing, Courtney
Carone, Ludmila
author_facet Hasegawa, Yasuhiro
Dressing, Courtney
Carone, Ludmila
contents How do habitable environments arise and evolve within the context of their planetary systems? This is one fundamental question, and it can be addressed partly by identifying how planets in habitable zones obtain water. Historically, astronomers considered that water was delivered to the Earth via dynamical shake-up by Jupiter, which took place during the formation and post-formation eras (e.g., $\lesssim 100$ Myr). This hypothesis has recently been challenged by a more dynamic view of planet formation; planet-forming materials move in protoplanetary disks via various physical processes such as pebble drift and planetary migration. \textit{Habitable Worlds Observatory} (HWO) will open a new window to address this important, but difficult question by discovering and characterizing Earth-like exoplanets around G-type stars. In this article, we consider two possible working hypotheses: (1) the abundance of water on planets in habitable zones has \textit{any} correlation with the presence of outer planets; and (2) the abundance of water on planets in habitable zones has \textit{no} correlation with the presence of outer planets. We discuss what physical parameters need to be measured to differentiate these two hypotheses and what observational capabilities are desired for HWO to reliably constrain these physical parameters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_07349
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probing the Origin of Water in Planets within Habitable Zones by HWO
Hasegawa, Yasuhiro
Dressing, Courtney
Carone, Ludmila
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
How do habitable environments arise and evolve within the context of their planetary systems? This is one fundamental question, and it can be addressed partly by identifying how planets in habitable zones obtain water. Historically, astronomers considered that water was delivered to the Earth via dynamical shake-up by Jupiter, which took place during the formation and post-formation eras (e.g., $\lesssim 100$ Myr). This hypothesis has recently been challenged by a more dynamic view of planet formation; planet-forming materials move in protoplanetary disks via various physical processes such as pebble drift and planetary migration. \textit{Habitable Worlds Observatory} (HWO) will open a new window to address this important, but difficult question by discovering and characterizing Earth-like exoplanets around G-type stars. In this article, we consider two possible working hypotheses: (1) the abundance of water on planets in habitable zones has \textit{any} correlation with the presence of outer planets; and (2) the abundance of water on planets in habitable zones has \textit{no} correlation with the presence of outer planets. We discuss what physical parameters need to be measured to differentiate these two hypotheses and what observational capabilities are desired for HWO to reliably constrain these physical parameters.
title Probing the Origin of Water in Planets within Habitable Zones by HWO
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07349