Habitable Worlds and Stellar Flares: Impact on Exoplanet Atmospheres and Life

Join a seminar exploring the intersection of exoplanet discovery and stellar flare impacts on potential habitable worlds. Learn from Dr. Maximilian N. Günther, CHEOPS Project Scientist at the European Space Agency, as he presents groundbreaking research on temperate super-Earths and sub-Neptunes orbiting cool stars. Discover how explosive stellar flaring and coronal mass ejections can both destroy and potentially spark life on exoplanets through atmospheric interactions. Explore modern survey techniques using TESS, SPECULOOS, NGTS, CHEOPS, and ASTEP, along with machine-learning approaches for detecting stellar flares. Gain insights into a newly discovered class of young red dwarf stars with complex flaring patterns and understand their implications for habitability studies. Connect astronomical findings with prebiotic chemistry and learn which worlds might occupy the sweet spot for life, becoming prime targets for future missions like JWST, Ariel, and LUVEX-class missions searching for biosignatures.