Do Earth-like exoplanets have magnetic fields? Far-off radio signal is promising sign
An artist's conceptual rendering of interactions between an exoplanet and its star.
April 3, 2023
Radio emissions originating about 12 light-years outside our solar system reveal possible magnetic interactions between star YZ Ceti and its prospective close-orbiting, rocky planet.
Earth's magnetic field does more than keep everyone's compass needles pointed in the same direction. It also helps preserve Earth’s sliver of life-sustaining atmosphere by deflecting high energy particles and plasma regularly blasted out of the sun. Researchers have now identified a prospective Earth-sized planet in another solar system as a prime candidate for also having a magnetic field — YZ Ceti b, a rocky planet orbiting a star about 12 light-years away from Earth.
Researchers Sebastian Pineda and Jackie Villadsen observed a repeating radio signal emanating from the star YZ Ceti using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, a radio telescope operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Research by Pineda and Villadsen to understand the magnetic field interactions between distant stars and their orbiting planets is supported by NSF. Their research was published today in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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