Xander Byrne

My interests centre on a simple question: how unique is the Solar System? Since the '90s, we've discovered loads of planets unlike any of our planetary siblings - super-Earths, mini-Neptunes, hot Jupiters - are we weird for not having any of these? Our Solar System has a set of rocky inner planets close in, and a set of gas giants further out - how common is this? Different stars are made of different assemblages of elements - are their planets made of different minerals? And of course, did the structure and chemistry of our Solar System make it conducive for the formation of life?

Recently I have been interested in better understanding the planets in our local neighbourhood of the Galaxy. My comprehensive study of the Barnard's Star planetary system - the 3rd-6th closest planets beyond the Solar System - found that the planets were tidally locked, unlikely to have atmospheres, and may have large quantities of a rare mineral at their surface. Another recent work presented a technique for putting *upper* mass limits on planets detected by the radial velocity method, which normally only have a lower limit.