"Retention of Habitable Atmospheres in Planetary Systems"

Abstract: Planetary atmospheres are not static in time, and the many changes they experience can contribute to making the planet’s surface a more (or less) hospitable place. Interactions between the planet and its host star are especially important, and not only control the temperature of an atmosphere but can drive atmospheric escape and atmospheric chemistry. In this presentation I describe ongoing efforts to understand what characteristics of a planet and its star, when combined together, allow the planet to retain an atmosphere that might be habitable at the planet’s surface. I’ll describe observations from planets in our solar system that inform this work, relevant modeling efforts, and a team science effort dedicated to answering this guiding question. Over the next five years, the team science effort will model atmospheric escape from ~200 star-planet combinations; I will present results from our first case studies.