Joint Astrophysical Colloquium
Strange New Worlds. The effects of high energy radiation on exoplanets, from atmosphere evaporation to habitability
Francesco Haardt (Università dell'Insubria)
Thursday 14/12/2023 @ 11:30, Sala Antonio Sollima (IV piano Battiferro) + remoto
Intense stellar radiation in the UV-to-gamma-ray bands has profound impacts on exoplanets. Extreme UV and X-rays irradiation from the host star heats and inflates the atmospheres of closely orbiting planets, from super-Earths to gas-giants, driving mass outflows that may be significant enough to evaporate a sizeable fraction of the planetary atmosphere over the system lifetime. Meanwhile, the host star non-ionising NUV photons can affect the path leading to the formation of life as we know it in rocky planets orbiting in the habitable zone. Finally, gamma-rays from transients such as GRBs and SNs can trigger mass-extinction events on Galactic scales. In this talk, I will present the research carried out in Como in the last 3 years on such topics, highlighting our major results and possible further developments.