Connecting the Early Solar System to Current Observations of Small Exoplanets

Measurements of the atmospheres of small planets are now feasible with the James Webb Space Telescope. These planets are generally hotter and bigger than the Solar System rocky planets, but smaller than our outer ice giants Neptune and Uranus, and many have primitive atmospheres like those that the rocky Solar System planets lost in their infancy. These exoplanets allow us to connect processes that happened in the ancient Solar System with ongoing, observable phenomenon. In this talk, I will touch on magma ocean-atmosphere exchange, primary atmospheres, and atmospheric escape both here in the Solar System and as observed on exoplanets and the future of observations for more habitable rocky worlds.

Speaker: Laura Schaefer, Stanford University