The Impact of Eruptions from Young Stars on Environments of Rocky Exoplanets

Abstract

Kepler and TESS missions have discovered over 4500 extra solar (exoplanets) around F, G, K and M dwarfs. They also revealed frequent superflares on planet hosting stars, providing a mechanism by which host stars may have profound effects on the physical and chemical evolution of exoplanetary atmospheres. While we can only infer the course of the Sun’s early evolution and how it might have affected the early evolution of the Earth, possibly setting the stage for the origin of life, the observation of planets around sun-like stars allows us to directly observe events which likely took place in our own solar system. A major question this leads to is: what effects do extreme energy fluxes from eruptive events during evolution of G-K planet hosts have on prebiotic chemistry and primitive life forms on primitive planets? To address this question, I will describe recent observations of young solar-like stars as inputs for our 3D MHD models of the corona, the wind and transient events (flares, coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particle events) and discuss their impact on atmospheric erosion and chemistry of our planet. I will then use these constrained energy fluxes to describe our recent atmospheric chemistry models impacted by energetic particles from the young Sun and formation and precipitation of biologically relevant molecules. I will then highlight our results of laboratory experiments of proton irradiation of mildly reduced gas mixtures and their implications to the climate, prebiotic chemistry and the rise of habitability on early Earth and young exoplanets.