Reconstructing Extreme Space Weather from Planet Hosting Stars
Abstract
The field of exoplanetary science is making rapid progress both in statistical studies of exoplanet properties as well as in individual characterization. As space missions provide an emerging picture of formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems, the search for habitable worlds becomes one of the fundamental issues to address. To tackle such a complex challenge, we need to specify the conditions favorable for the origin, development and sustainment of life as we know it. This requires the understanding of global (astrospheric) and local (atmospheric, surface and internal) environments of exoplanets in the framework of the physical processes of the interaction between evolving planet-hosting stars along with exoplanetary evolution over geological timescales, and the resulting impact on climate and habitability of exoplanets. Feedbacks between astrophysical, physico-chemical atmospheric and geological processes can only be understood through interdisciplinary studies with the incorporation of progress in heliophysics, astrophysics, planetary, Earth sciences, astrobiology, and the origin of life communities. The assessment of the impacts of host stars on the climate and habitability of terrestrial (exo)planets and potential exomoons around them may significantly modify the extent and the location of the habitable zone and provide new directions for searching for signatures of life. Thus, characterization of stellar ionizing outputs becomes an important task for further understanding the extent of habitability in the universe. The goal of this white paper is to identify and describe promising key research goals to aid the theoretical characterization and observational detection of ionizing radiation from quiescent and flaring upper atmospheres of planet hosts as well as properties of stellar coronal mass ejections and stellar energetic particle events.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.06853,
title = {Reconstructing Extreme Space Weather from Planet Hosting Stars},
author = {V. S. Airapetian and V. Adibekyan and M. Ansdell and D. Alexander and T. Bastian and S. Boro Saikia and A. S. Brun and O. Cohen and M. Cuntz and W. Danchi and J. Davenport and J. DeNolfo and R. DeVore and C. F. Dong and J. J. Drake and K. France and F. Fraschetti and K. Herbst and K. Garcia-Sage and M. Gillon and A. Glocer and J. L. Grenfell and G. Gronoff and N. Gopalswamy and M. Guedel and H. Hartnett and H. Harutyunyan and N. R. Hinkel and A. G. Jensen and M. Jin and C. Johnstone and P. Kalas and S. R. Kane and C. Kay and I. N. Kitiashvili and O. Kochukhov and D. Kondrashov and J. Lazio and J. Leake and G. Li and J. Linsky and T. Lueftinger and B. Lynch and W. Lyra and A. M. Mandell and K. E. Mandt and H. Maehara and M. S. Miesch and A. M. Mickaelian and S. Mouchou and Y. Notsu and L. Ofman and L. D. Oman and R. A. Osten and R. Oran and R. Petre and R. M. Ramirez and G. Rau and S. Redfield and V. Réville and S. Rugheimer and M. Scheucher and J. E. Schlieder and K. Shibata and J. D. Schnittman and David Soderblom and A. Strugarek and J. D. Turner and A. Usmanov and Van Der Holst and A. Vidotto and A. Vourlidas and M. J. Way and Wolk and G. P. Zank and P. Zarka R. and Kopparapu and S. Babakhanova and A. A. Pevtsov and Y. Lee and W. Henning and K. D. Colón and E. T. Wolf},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.06853},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
White Paper submitted to the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey (Astro2020), 8 pages, 1 figure