Together with my PhD student Laura Ketzer and postdoc Matthias Mallonn, we have published a new paper on the atmospheric evaporation of the four very young planets around the star V1298 Tau. We measured the star’s X-ray spectrum by combining ROSAT and Chandra observations, and found that the star is highly active with an X-ray luminosity above 10^30 erg/s. Laura developed a numerical code to estimate the planetary evaporation as the star ages and becomes less X-ray bright. Depending on the masses of the planetary cores and the age at which the star will start spinning down, some of the planets may lose their complete atmosphere by the time the star reaches the age of our Sun.

This paper was also featured in a press release of our institute: https://www.aip.de/en/news/science/four-newborn-exoplanets-get-cooked-by-their-sun?set_language=en

For a read, go here: “X-ray irradiation and evaporation of the four young planets around V1298 Tau”, Poppenhaeger, K.; Ketzer, L.; Mallonn, M., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Advance Access, May 2020