Scientists have detected radio waves produced by the magnetic field of exoplanet YZ Ceti b. In this respect informs TASS.
In recent years, the discovery of exoplanets has become routine for scientists, but most of them belong to the class of gas giants and do not look like Earth at all. Discovery of rocky planets is rarer, but scientists are particularly interested in investigating their properties, as they may resemble Earth. In particular, to sustain life, it is necessary to have not only water and heat, but also a magnetic field – without it, the solar wind kills the cells and “blows” the atmosphere, just like on Mars.
Now, Sebastian Piñeda of Colorado State University in Boulder and his colleagues have found solid evidence of a magnetic field around the rocky exoplanet. It is located 12.1 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus.
This planet is a smaller rocky body than Venus or Earth, making it one of our closest candidates for the “Earth twin” role. It orbits the AI star at a relatively short distance and orbits this red dwarf in about two days, so its surface has very high temperatures.
Using the ground-based VLA radio telescope, astronomers discovered that the YZ star system produces unusual periodic radio bursts whose frequency corresponds to YZ Ceti b’s orbit around the red dwarf. Subsequent analysis of the structure of the spectrum and the strength of these radio wave bursts showed that they were produced by the interactions of the planet’s magnetosphere with the star’s magnetic field in stellar wind emissions.
The authors consider their method to be universal, meaning that similarly magnetic fields can be sought on other rocky planets close to parent stars.
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