Can Stellar Flares Activate Prebiotic Chemistry?

Funder	Science and Technology Facilities Council
Recipient Organization	University of Cambridge
Country	United Kingdom
Start Date	Sep 30, 2023
End Date	Mar 30, 2027
Duration	1,277 days
Number of Grantees	2
Roles	Student; Supervisor
Data Source	UKRI Gateway to Research
Grant ID	`2886131`

Grant Description

Understanding prebiotic chemistry is vital to understanding the origin of life and the likelihood of life developing on other planets. So far UV light has been shown to activate prebiotic reactions with irradiation at constant intensity.

With the experimental stellar simulator, FlareLab, it is now possible to investigate how prebiotic chemistry changes (and if it is still possible) at different stellar conditions and different flaring conditions (e.g. flaring behaviour due to M-dwarves).