Rory Barnes is a theorist primarily interested in the evolution of habitable planets. He is the lead developer of the VPLanet software package that simulates the internal, atmospheric, orbital, stellar, and galactic influences on planetary habitability. Prof. Barnes is a member of the Virtual Planetary Laboratory, ROCKE-3D, and JPL Icy Worlds consortia, and is also an affiliate professor in the UW’s eScience Institute.
Current Students:
Past Students:
- Russell Deitrick
- Rodrigo Luger
- David Fleming
Selected Publications
Barnes, R., Luger, R., Deitrick, R., Driscoll, P., Quinn, T. R., Fleming, D. P., Smotherman, H., McDonald, D. V., Wilhelm, C., Garcia, R., Barth, P., Guyer, B., Meadows, V. S., Bitz, C. M., Gupta, P., Domagal-Goldman, S. D., & Armstrong, J. (2020). VPLanet: The Virtual Planet Simulator. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 024502. https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ab3ce8
Fleming, D. P., Barnes, R., Luger, R., & VanderPlas, J. T. (2020). On the XUV Luminosity Evolution of TRAPPIST-1. The Astrophysical Journal, 155. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab77ad
Deitrick, R., Barnes, R., Bitz, C., Fleming, D., Charnay, B., Meadows, V., Wilhelm, C., Armstrong, J., & Quinn, T. R. (2018). Exo-Milankovitch Cycles. II. Climates of G-dwarf Planets in Dynamically Hot Systems. The Astronomical Journal, 266. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aac214
Barnes, R. (2017). Tidal locking of habitable exoplanets. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 509–536. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10569-017-9783-7
Jackson, B., Greenberg, R., & Barnes, R. (2008). Tidal Heating of Extrasolar Planets. The Astrophysical Journal, 1631–1638. https://doi.org/10.1086/587641
Luger, R., & Barnes, R. (2015). Extreme Water Loss and Abiotic O2 Buildup on Planets Throughout the Habitable Zones of M Dwarfs. Astrobiology, 119–143. https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2014.1231