Growing up in a rowdy household: a star’s role in shaping the lives of its

https://www.youtube.com/live/FacGLSZKeQ8

Star and their planets are not independent - they evolve together and each can influence the evolution of the other. In this talk I will look particularly at the impact of stars on their planets, especially early in their lives when the star is most active. Some of the emissions from a star might be considered beneficial to a planet – stars after all are the source of the warmth and light that allows plants to grow and life in general to evolve. A planet can have too much of a good thing, however. The very high-energy UV light from a star can damage a planet’s atmosphere and may erode it completely. This is most likely to happen when the star is young and powering huge flares that not only irradiate any planets, but also cause the star to expel expulsion large clouds of hot gas that add to the stripping of exoplanetary atmospheres. Studying other (younger) versions of our Sun can help us to understand these processes and to see the evolution of our own solar system in the context of other stars.

I am a professor of Astronomy at the University of St Andrews. I was appointed to a personal chair in 2010 when I became the first female professor of physics at this University. The aim of my research is to understand the evolutionary history of our own solar system and the fundamental physics that governs planet habitability. To achieve this, I study the magnetic activity of a range of stars. This activity drives both the stellar wind and the coronal X-ray emission that can erode and irradiate planetary atmospheres. This has a long-term impact on the ability of the planet to harbour complex life.

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