On Earth, we often underestimate our planet’s magnetic field. It protects living things from the sun’s rays, draws compass arrows north, and even creates beautiful auroras. Other worlds in our solar system also have magnetic fields – but what about Earth-like planets around other stars? A new study may have found a promising result. Recent observations by the VLA (Very Large Array) radio telescopes in New Mexico have found evidence of a magnetic field in the rocky exoplanet YZ Ceti b, which orbits a star about 12 light-years from Earth. According to a study published April 3 in the journal Nature AstronomyIt is the first possible detection of a magnetic field on a planet outside our solar system.

“This study not only shows that this particular rocky exoplanet likely has a magnetic field, but also provides a promising method for finding more,” said study author Joe Pesce. This is stated in a statement by the director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

Magnetic fields are of particular interest to astronomers as they are an essential part of making a planet habitable. Without a magnetic field, the star’s energetic particles could eat up the planet’s atmosphere and strip it of the gaseous envelope that could support life.

“Studying potentially habitable or living worlds in other solar systems depends in part on our ability to determine whether rocky, Earth-like exoplanets do indeed have magnetic fields,” Pesce said. Said.

However, AI Ceti b is not a habitable planet. To detect radio waves from the magnetic field of a small distant exoplanet, astronomers had to pay particular attention to an extreme sample. YZ Ceti is so close to star b—too close to be at a comfortable temperature for life—and also spinning so fast that it only takes two Earth days a year.

According to the researchers, it’s so close that the planet is “drifted” due to material stripped from the star. The planet’s magnetic field pushes the electrically charged plasma back toward the star, and the star then interacts with the star’s own magnetic field, emitting bright bursts of energy. Essentially, the radio waves the team observed were an aurora on the star, likely produced by an interaction with the planet, the team said.

“If a planet has its own atmosphere, it should also have an aurora,” said Sebastian Pineda, an astronomer at the University of Colorado at Boulder and co-author of the new study. Said. “This gives us new information about the environment around stars,” added Pineda. “We call this idea ‘extrasolar space weather’.

However, the team isn’t 100% sure that the auroras are entirely caused by AI Ceti b. More observations are needed to confirm that this is actually due to 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 inhabited alien planets.

Study co-author Jackie Willadsen, an astronomer at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, said in a statement that it was “likely” that this could be the first detection of a magnetic field on a rocky exoplanet. “But I think much more work will be needed before there is really strong evidence of planetary radio waves,” he added.