"Evolution of planetary systems through atmospheric escape"

Presented by Dr. Leonardo Dos Santos, Assistant Astronomer, from the Space Telescope Science Institute

The discovery of more than 6,000 exoplanets imposes outstanding questions related to our origins: How do planets evolve? Is our Solar System common? How and where can life emerge? To answer these fundamental questions, we need to understand the physical processes underlying the formation and evolution of planets. We have been observing atmospheres in planets outside of the Solar System for more than two decades. This journey started with the Hubble Space Telescope, which we still use to this date and advances to new depths with the James Webb Space Telescope and ground-based facilities. But it seems that the more we observe, the more mysteries emerge. Great sophistication is now required of physical models to help us understand some of these mysteries, and we cannot ignore anymore complications such as three-dimensionality, stellar activity, magnetic field interactions, and chemical composition. In this talk, I will discuss some of the major discoveries in this research area, as well as avenues for further advancing our understanding of atmospheric evolution beyond the Solar System. Finally, I will briefly touch upon the efforts to develop NASA's next flagship mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which is set to observe Earth-like exoplanets in the solar neighborhood using leading-edge techniques and instruments.