More than 3000 exoplanets have been detected so far, and more and more spectroscopic observations of exoplanets are performed. Future instruments are eagerly awaited as they will be able to provide spectroscopic data with a greater accuracy and sensitivity than what is currently available. An important aspect to consider is temporal stellar atmospheric disturbances that can influence the planetary composition, and hence spectra, and potentially can lead to incorrect assumptions about the steady-state atmospheric composition of the planet. We focus on perturbations that come from the host star in the form of flare events that significantly increase the photon flux impingement on the exoplanet atmosphere. In some cases, and particularly for M stars, this sudden increase may last for several hours. We aim at answering the question to what extent a stellar flare is able to modify the chemical composition of the planetary atmosphere and, therefore influence the resulting spectra. We use a 1D thermo-photochemical model to study the neutral atmospheric composition of two hypothetic planets located around the star AD Leo. This active star has already been observed during a flare. We use the spectroscopic data from this flare event to simulate the evolution of the chemical composition of the atmospheres of the two hypothetic planets. We compute synthetic spectra to evaluate the implications for observations. The increase of the incoming photon flux affects the chemical abundances of some important species down to altitudes associated with an atmospheric pressure of 1 bar, that can lead to variations in planetary spectra if performed during transit.
Two large scintillator telescopes of cubical geometry, tilted at an angle of 45° to the vertical, were set up pointing in the east and west directions at the equatorial station Makerere. Data from these telescopes are available from July 1964 onwards. During the initial year of observation the solar diurnal variation in both telescopes, after pressure correction, had an amplitude of about 0.2%, but the absence of any appreciable phase difference between the east and west directions suggests that in the intermediate range of rigidities (say 50–150 GV) there was no appreciable primary anisotropy during the last solar minimum. This conclusion is in agreement with that drawn from similar measurements made at Chacaltaya. The large amplitude of the Makerere diurnal variation, however, suggests that there is a substantial "local" source of the diurnal variation which is significantly different from that observed at Chacaltaya. The possible origin of this "local" source is briefly discussed.