Astronomers Spot First Coronal Mass Ejection from a Distant Star, Raising Questions About Planetary Habitability

For the first time, astronomers have followed a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from a star other than our Sun as it erupted and collided with surrounding material, illuminating its passage. With the help of data from XMM-Newton, ESA's orbiting X-ray telescope, and the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope – a pan-European facility which also involves stations in Sweden, researchers observed the CME from a red dwarf star 130 light-years away. The blast hurled superheated plasma into space at 2,400 kilometers per second, an impact strong enough to strip away the atmosphere of any closely orbiting planet — one more indication of how hard it may be to find life on worlds around small, active stars.

First Confirmed Coronal Mass Ejection from a Red Dwarf Reveals Threat to Exoplanet Atmospheres

According to a report in Nature, the team led by Joe Callingham of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy confirmed the CME by combining radio wave detection from LOFAR with X-ray measurements from XMM-Newton. “Past observations gave us some clues that local escape of ISM material was possible, but we were still sceptical until we found clear observational evidence for this escape.” The red dwarf rotates 20 times more quickly than the Sun, and has a magnetic field that is some 300 times stronger – both of which would contribute to the intensity of the CME.

The finding helps astronomers locate exoplanets that have the potential to maintain an atmosphere, with powerful CMEs from typical red dwarfs possibly jeopardizing even habitable-zone worlds.

“This breakthrough opens a new window to study space weather beyond our solar system,” mentioned ESA's Henrik Eklund, helping scientists understand CMEs, atmospheric loss, planetary evolution, and habitability.

The study shows that combining XMM-Newton and LOFAR enabled the detection of stellar CMEs, solving a decades-long mystery and aiding future research on exoplanet habitability.