The discovery of thousands of exoplanets revealed a huge variety in the sizes, masses, and orbital properties of planets outside of our solar system. I will discuss how the physics of gas accretion, dust-gas interaction, and star-disk-planet interaction can shape the observed diversity, providing explanations for some of the puzzling demographic patterns that have emerged in exoplanet science while placing our solar system in the larger Galactic context.

Planetary atmospheres are not static in time, and the many changes they experience can contribute to making a planet’s surface a more (or less) hospitable place. Interactions between a planet and its host star are especially important. They not only control the temperature of an atmosphere but can also drive atmospheric escape and atmospheric chemistry. In this presentation I describe ongoing efforts to understand what characteristics of a planet and its star, when combined together, allow the planet to retain an atmosphere that might be habitable at the planet’s surface. I’ll describe observations from planets in our solar system that inform this work, relevant modeling and observational efforts, and a team science effort dedicated to answering this guiding question.

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