# The Early Evolution of Stars and Exoplanet Systems: Exploring and Exploiting Nearby, Young Stars (an Astro2020 Science White Paper)

## TL;DR

This paper discusses how studying nearby, young stars within 120 parsecs, especially those in moving groups, can significantly advance our understanding of early stellar and exoplanet evolution through upcoming observational opportunities.

## Contribution

It highlights the potential for progress in understanding early star and planet development by leveraging the study of young moving groups with current and future astronomical facilities.

## Key findings

- Young moving groups enable detailed study of early stellar evolution.
- Nearby young stars are key to direct imaging of young exoplanets.
- Progress is expected through upcoming observational facilities.

## Abstract

Our knowledge of the population of young (age <=750 Myr) stars that lie within ~120 pc of the Sun is rapidly accelerating. The vast majority of these nearby, young stars can be placed in kinematically coherent groups (nearby, young moving groups; NYMGs). NYMGs and their member stars afford unmatched opportunities to explore a wide variety of aspects of the early evolution of stars and exoplanet systems, including stellar initial mass functions and age determination methods; the magnetic activities and high-energy radiation environments of young, late-type stars; the dynamics of young binary and hierarchical multiple systems; the late evolutionary stages of circumstellar disks; and, especially, direct-imaging discovery and characterization of massive young exoplanets. In this Astro2020 Science White Paper, we describe how our understanding of these and many other aspects of the early lives of stars and planetary systems is ripe for progress over the next decade via the identification and study of NYMG members with present and next-generation facilities and instruments.