On Earth, we often take our planet’s magnetic field for granted. It protects living creatures from the sun’s rays, draws compass needles to the north, and even creates beautiful aurora borealis.
Other worlds in our solar system also have magnetic fields but what about Earth-like planets around other stars? New research may have revealed a promising lead.
Recent observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescopes in New Mexico have revealed evidence of a magnetic field on the rocky exoplanet YZ Ceti b, which orbits a star about 12 light-years from Earth. This is the first possible detection of a magnetic field on a planet outside our solar system, according to a study published April 3 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
“This research not only shows that this particular rocky exoplanet likely has a magnetic field, but provides a promising method for finding others,” said study author Joe Pesce director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Statement.
Magnetic fields are of particular interest to astronomers because they are an important part of making a planet habitable. Without a magnetic field, energetic particles from the star can erode the planet’s atmosphere, stripping it of the blanket of gas that can support life.
“The search for potentially habitable or life-bearing worlds in other solar systems depends in part on being able to determine whether rocky Earth-like exoplanets actually have magnetic fields,” Pesce said.
YZ Ceti b star
However, YZ Ceti b is not a habitable planet. To detect radio waves from the magnetic field of a small, distant exoplanet, astronomers had to look for a particularly extreme example. YZ Ceti b is quite close to its star too close to be a comfortable temperature for life and also orbits at such a rate that one of its years is just two Earth days.
It’s so close that the planet is “breaking through” material that is being peeled off the star, according to the researchers. The planet’s magnetic field pushes the electrically charged plasma back toward the star, which then interacts with the star’s own magnetic field and emits bright flashes of energy.
Essentially, the radio waves the team observed were auroras on the star, likely created by an interaction with the planet, the team said.
“The planet should also have an aurora if it has its own atmosphere,” Sebastian Pineda (opens in new tab), an astronomer at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the new research, said in a statement.
However, the team is not 100% sure that the aurora is entirely caused by YZ Ceti b. More observations are needed to confirm that it is actually caused by the rocky planet’s magnetic field and not just a feature of the star itself. However, the team remains optimistic that these findings could lead to future breakthroughs in the search for habitable alien planets.
Study co-author Jackie Villadsen (opens in new tab), an astronomer at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, said in a statement that this “could really be” the first detection of a magnetic field on a rocky exoplanet. “But I think it’s going to be a lot of follow-up work before there’s really strong confirmation of radio waves caused by a planet,” she added.
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