PROTEUS is a modular Python framework that simulates the coupled evolution of rocky planet atmospheres and interiors. It connects interior thermal evolution, volatile outgassing, atmospheric radiative transfer, atmospheric escape, and stellar evolution into a self-consistent time-stepping loop, tracking the planet from a molten magma ocean to a solidified surface over billions of years.

Schematic of PROTEUS components and corresponding modules.

Key features¶

• Modular architecture: each physical domain (interior, atmosphere, escape, outgassing, stellar, orbit) has multiple interchangeable backends with a common interface
• Coupled evolution: modules exchange boundary conditions through a shared data bus at each timestep, enforcing mass and energy conservation across the full planet system
• Adaptive time-stepping: the simulation automatically adjusts its timestep to resolve rapid transitions (magma ocean solidification, escape episodes) while stepping efficiently through quasi-steady phases
• Parameter studies: built-in support for Cartesian parameter grid sweeps and asynchronous Bayesian optimization for inverse problems
• Synthetic observations: forward models for transit and eclipse spectra from the simulated atmospheric state

Get started¶

Need the full picture? See the get started guide.

Citation and credit¶

If you make use of PROTEUS, please reference the scientific manuscripts outlined in the Bibliography, state the code version used, and include an acknowledgement. We provide a suggested acknowledgement in the contributing page.

License¶

PROTEUS is released under the Apache 2.0 license.