The high-energy radiation environment around a 10 Gyr M dwarf: habitable at last?

Journal article

Recent work has demonstrated that high levels of X-ray and UV activity on young M dwarfs may drive rapid atmospheric escape on temperate, terrestrial planets orbiting within the habitable zone. However, secondary atmospheres on planets orbiting older, less active M dwarfs may be stable and present more promising candidates for biomarker searches. In order to evaluate the potential habitability of Earth-like planets around old, inactive M dwarfs, we present new Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory observations of Barnard's Star (GJ 699), a 10 Gyr old M3.5 dwarf, acquired as part of the Mega-MUSCLES program. Despite the old age and long rotation period of Barnard's Star, we observe two FUV (δ130 ≈ 5000 s; E130 ≈ 1029.5 erg each) and one X-ray (EX ≈ 1029.2 erg) flares, and we estimate a high-energy flare duty cycle (defined here as the fraction of the time the star is in a flare state) of ~25%. A publicly available 5 Å to 10 μm spectral energy distribution of GJ 699 is created and used to evaluate the atmospheric stability of a hypothetical, unmagnetized terrestrial planet in the habitable zone (rHZ ~ 0.1 au). Both thermal and nonthermal escape modeling indicate (1) the quiescent stellar XUV flux does not lead to strong atmospheric escape: atmospheric heating rates are comparable to periods of high solar activity on modern Earth, and (2) the flare environment could drive the atmosphere into a hydrodynamic loss regime at the observed flare duty cycle: sustained exposure to the flare environment of GJ 699 results in the loss of ≈87 Earth atmospheres Gyr−1 through thermal processes and ≈3 Earth atmospheres Gyr−1 through ion loss processes. These results suggest that if rocky planet atmospheres can survive the initial ~5 Gyr of high stellar activity, or if a second-generation atmosphere can be formed or acquired, the flare duty cycle may be the controlling stellar parameter for the stability of Earth-like atmospheres around old M stars.

Authors: France, K; Duvvuri, G; Egan, H; Koskinen, T; Wilson, DJ

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Journal: Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 160
• Issue: 5
• Article number: 237
• Publication date: 2020-10-30
• Acceptance date: 2020-08-31
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/abb465
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• Language: English
• Keywords: exoplanet atmospheres; Hubble Space Telescope; habitable zone; stellar activity; solar extreme ultraviolet emission; stellar flares; FFR