What can space weather from our Sun teach scientists about the habitability of exoplanets? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how solar activity like coronal mass ejections and stellar flares could influence an exoplanet’s habitability and atmospheric evolution. This study has the potential to help researchers better understand the conditions an exoplanet requires for life as we know exist while narrowing the scope for searching for life beyond Earth.
For the study, the researchers used a combination of computer models and statistical calculations to ascertain how space weather could influence planetary characteristics for exoplanets that mirror TRAPPIST-1e, which is slightly smaller than Earth for both radius and mass and is located approximately 41 light-years away. In the end, the researchers found that space weather could influence an exoplanet’s climate and atmospheric chemistry, with large solar flares resulting in high atmospheric wind speeds up to 40 meters per second (131 feet per second). Additionally, the researchers used this data to better understand how space weather could influence Earth, as well.
“This study highlights an underexplored but important solar-climate link,” said Dr. Assaf Hochman, who is a senior lecturer in the Institute of Earth Sciences at Hebrew University and a co-author on the study. “While anthropogenic greenhouse gases primarily drive long-term climate change, we now see that short-term solar variability can also play a role in modulating regional climate behavior.”
The researchers concluded that large space weather events from stars younger than our Sun could play a vital role in the evolution of their planets’ atmosphere and habitability potential.
What new connections between space weather and life beyond Earth will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: The Astronomical Journal, EurekAlert!
Featured Image Credit: Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
