Project Details
Projekt
The Impact of Stellar Space Weather on Exoplanetary Habitability
Applicant
Privatdozent Konstantin Herbst, Ph.D.
Subject Area
Astrophysics and Astronomy
Term
since 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 551011073
The search for life outside our solar system was and is a major motivation for discovering extrasolar planets in other stellar systems. With new missions like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and upcoming missions like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (ARIEL), we are on the verge of detecting Earth-like atmospheres and for the first time, biosignatures like ozone, methane, and other molecule in non-thermal equilibrium - which are directly related to life on Earth-like exoplanets - to be found in other atmospheres. However, in recent years it has been shown that stellar space weather - i.e., the influence of stellar flares, stellar winds, coronal mass ejections, and galactic/stellar energetic particles - may have a major impact on exoplanetary atmospheres. Not only the atmospheric dynamics, the climate, and the atmospheric chemistry (and thus also the biosignature signals) could be strongly influenced, but also the induced atmospheric secondary particle environment and the planetary radiation exposure. The question of whether a planet is habitable or not is, therefore, complex and difficult to answer. To be able to interpret these spectral observations, an interdisciplinary approach and model studies are required, which include various processes such as atmospheric escape, atmospheric outgassing, climate, ion/photochemistry, as well as the physics of induced atmospheric air showers and the transport of stellar and galactic particles through stellar astrospheres (protective plasma bubbles around stars) and planetary magnetic fields. The main goal of this project is to further study the effects of stellar space weather on exoplanetary magnetic fields, atmospheres, and their habitability. To achieve this, the newly developed INCREASE model suite is being further expanded. To enable self-consistent modeling, for example, all simplified analytical approximations will be replaced by numerical solutions. The following scientific questions will be addressed: Q1: What astrospheric structures are to be expected for cool stars, and how do numerical results compare to observations? Q2: How are energetic particles transported in turbulent astrophysical structures, and what fluxes are expected in stellar systems? Q3: What impact does space weather have on exoplanetary magnetic fields and atmospheres? Q4: How well do modeled transmission spectra compare with observations? Therefore, model studies for different astrospheric (G, K, M stars), magnetospheric (induced, crustal, global), and atmospheric (N2-O2, CO2, H2, H2O dominated) scenarios are performed.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
India, South Africa
Co-Investigators
Professorin Katja Poppenhäger; Dr. Klaus Scherer
