Project description
Novel polarisation techniques could help determine whether exoplanets host life
A fundamental goal in astronomy is to determine whether planets around other stars can support life. Space weather conditions, such as plasma ejections or magnetic fields, that impact an exoplanet’s atmosphere are critical to understanding whether these planets are habitable. Researchers working on the ERC-funded Epaphus project, have already achieved the first low-frequency detection of quiescent stars using a novel polarisation technique. This observation revealed interactions between stars and their planets, offering a new way to detect exoplanets and characterise their environments. With plans to expand observations and analyse more stars, researchers aim now to uncover how space weather affects exoplanet habitability. Project findings will bring us closer to identifying planets that can host life.
Objective
A fundamental goal of astronomy in the coming decades is to determine whether a planet around another star could be habitable. An important piece in this habitability puzzle is the environmental conditions of an exoplanet: the 'space weather' it experiences. However, determining the space weather conditions around a star has been challenging because of the limited sensitivity of low-frequency radio telescopes.
A low-frequency radio detection of a star or exoplanet can provide evidence of plasma ejection from the star, or a direct measurement of an exoplanet's magnetic field strength. Such information determines if a planet's atmosphere can survive the onslaught of stellar activity.
Recently, I achieved the first low-frequency detections of quiescent stars via a novel polarisation technique using the telescope LOFAR. The radio emission is likely generated by star-planet interactions -- representing a new way to discover exoplanets and characterise their space weather environment.
These first detections represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of other detectable stellar systems as I expand my observations over the northern sky. I am on the precipice of conducting the first ever population analysis of the types of stars that emit at low frequencies, revealing whether they are orbited by exoplanets, and what environmental conditions such planets experience.
This grant will allow me to scale my new low-frequency calibration and polarimetric techniques to determine the space weather of stars and exoplanets via: 1) determining the radio periodicity from star-exoplanet interactions; 2) directly detecting radio emission from an exoplanet; and 3) tracing the kinematics of ejected stellar plasma.
Such information will facilitate a leap in our understanding of the plasma environments around stars and the underlying laws governing the generation of planetary magnetic fields -- information that will guide us in the coming revolution in exoplanet habitability.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets exoplanetology
- social sciences law
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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3526 KV UTRECHT
Netherlands
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