Abstract

[This is a joint talk between the Cambridge University Astronomical Society (CUAS) and the Cambridge University Physics Society (CUPS)]

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While we have detected over 4000 planets around old main-sequence stars like our Sun, we have only discovered a handful of planetary systems around young stars with ages less than a few hundred million years. These young planetary systems are very important, however, because they directly link our theories of planet formation and early evolution to the older exoplanet population. In doing so, they offer important new insights into some of the key outstanding questions in exoplanet research, such as: how do planetary systems form and evolve into the diverse population that we observe? And how does early stellar activity affect subsequent planet habitability? I will discuss ongoing efforts to help answer these questions by detecting new young planetary systems and characterising the variability of young stars.