Würzburg 2018 – scientific programme

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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 9: Exoplanets und Astrobiology with poster prize talk

EP 9.3: Talk

Thursday, March 22, 2018, 12:00–12:15, BSZ - Pabel HS

The Impact of Stellar Radiation on Bioindicators — •Vanessa Schmidt and Miriam Sinnhuber — Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, D-76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

Within the past year, several terrestrial planets have been detected in the habitable zone (HZ) of M-dwarf stars. Since these types of stars are typically significantly more active than our own sun, it is expected that the effects of their stellar activity on the chemical composition of the exoplanets' atmosphere are much more pronounced than in the case of Earth and Sun.

In our work, we study Earth-like planets in the HZ of M-dwarf stars with a particular focus on the interaction of ionizing radiation with the atmosphere of the planet. Assuming an Earth-like N2-O2 base atmosphere, we can quantify the impact of stellar radiation on molecules influenced by biogenic processes such as, e.g., ozone, nitrous oxide, and methane.

To this end, we develop and apply a 1-dimensional stacked box column model of the neutral and ionized atmosphere to obtain the production rates of several important neutral species, which allows us to determine the long time effect of stellar activity on atmospheric concentrations of bioindicators.