{"id":14218,"date":"2021-01-26T14:32:37","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T20:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/?p=14218"},"modified":"2023-12-04T15:34:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T21:34:37","slug":"uwm-astronomer-helps-discover-extrasolar-space-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/in-focus-2021\/uwm-astronomer-helps-discover-extrasolar-space-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"51ÁÔÆæ astronomer helps discover extrasolar \u2018space weather\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you wanted to look for life on planets around stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets, you would first locate the ones in the \u201cGoldilocks zone.\u201d That\u2019s the area \u2013 not too close, not too far \u2013 at just the right distance from a star where a planet might have liquid water.<\/p>\n

Unlike the sun, most stars in the Milky Way galaxy are small, relatively cool red dwarfs \u2013 called M dwarfs. Proxima Centauri, the sun\u2019s closest neighbor at only 4 light years away, is an M dwarf with two exoplanets that could be habitable.<\/p>\n

However, stars, including M dwarfs, emit flares \u2013 brief but powerful eruptions of intense electromagnetic radiation that occur on the stellar surface. And, at least for the sun, these components of \u201cspace weather\u201d are accompanied by clouds of ionized gas that could harm life.<\/p>\n

Using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope in Western Australia, astronomers including David Kaplan<\/a>, 51ÁÔÆæ associate professor of physics<\/a>, have linked stellar flares with accompanying bursts of radio waves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever our sun emits such bursts, it also shoots out clouds of gas,\u201d said Kaplan. \u201cSo we are pretty sure now that when we see such bursts from other stars they are also shooting out similar clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work makes it possible for the first time to produce space weather reports around nearby stars outside the solar system \u2013 and it brings new information to bear on the search for habitable exoplanets.<\/p>\n

Even though Earth is protected by a magnetic field, space weather from the sun can still affect communications, transportation and the electrical grid. M dwarfs have many more flares, and the habitable planets are much closer in, making them more vulnerable to dangerous radiation, said the paper\u2019s lead author, Andrew Zic, of the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is probably bad news on the space weather front,\u201d Zic said. \u201cIt seems likely that the galaxy\u2019s most common stars \u2013 red dwarfs \u2013 won\u2019t be great places to find life as we know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore now, there was no direct way to monitor space weather from another star,\u201d Kaplan added, \u201cso we did not know how bad the problem really was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Published Dec. 9 in The Astrophysical Journal<\/a> <\/i>, the research also was done in collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation<\/a> <\/i>, the University of Western Australia<\/a> <\/i>, University of Colorado<\/a> <\/i> and Curtin University<\/a> <\/i>.<\/p>\n

By Laura Otto<\/strong>, University Relations<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you wanted to look for life on planets around stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets, you would first locate the ones in the \u201cGoldilocks zone.\u201d That\u2019s the area \u2013 not too close, not too far \u2013 at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19040,"featured_media":14219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[1715],"tags":[1852],"class_list":["post-14218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus-2021","tag-february"],"yoast_head":"\nLetters & Science<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/in-focus-2021\/uwm-astronomer-helps-discover-extrasolar-space-weather\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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