Variability of solar/stellar activity and magnetic field and its influence on planetary atmosphere evolution

Autor(en)
Helmut Lammer, Manuel Güdel, Yuri N. Kulikov, Ignasi Ribas, Teimuraz V. Zaqarashvili
Abstrakt

It is shown that the evolution of planetary atmospheres can only be understood if one recognizes the fact that the radiation and particle environment of the Sun or a planet's host star were not always on the same level as at present. New insights and the latest observations and research regarding the evolution of the solar radiation, plasma environment and solar/stellar magnetic field derived from the observations of solar proxies with different ages will be given. We show that the extreme radiation and plasma environments of the young Sun/stars have important implications for the evolution of planetary atmospheres and may be responsible for the fact that planets with low gravity like early Mars most likely never build up a dense atmosphere during the first few 100 Myr after their origin. Finally we present an innovative new idea on how hydrogen clouds and energetic neutral atom (ENA) observations around transiting Earth-like exoplanets by space observatories such as the WSO-UV, can be used for validating the addressed atmospheric evolution studies. Such observations would enhance our understanding on the impact on the activity of the young Sun on the early atmospheres of Venus, Earth, Mars and other Solar System bodies as well as exoplanets.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Astrophysik
Externe Organisation(en)
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW), Russian Academy of Sciences, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Journal
Earth, Planets and Space (EPS)
Band
64
Seiten
179-199
Anzahl der Seiten
21
ISSN
1343-8832
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5047/eps.2011.04.002
Publikationsdatum
2012
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
103003 Astronomie
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/8ec9453e-9e5d-4988-86f8-8100fce2a4b2