helped build the antennas<\/a> for the array last year.) This search looked at stars with known planets, and did a \u201cblind search\u201d for any signal that could be coming from planets.<\/p>\nKaplan said the program is in part an indirect way to search for planets that could sustain life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about what makes a planet habitable, you need an atmosphere,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cBut you also need a magnetic field to protect the planet from damaging radiation from its star.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a planet has a magnetic field and an atmosphere, it will have an aurora, which will emit the radio waves we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the searches did not detect planetary magnetic fields, these are only the first results from a larger program to systematically search for radio emissions from planets orbiting young stars. The telescope is currently undergoing upgrades that will enhance its sensitivity for future searches.<\/p>\n
Kaplan is also participating in a second observing program looking at stars to determine what the \u201cspace weather\u201d would be like for orbiting planets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee astronomer David Kaplan and colleagues have begun a radio search for the magnetic fields of planets orbiting distant stars. The team reported its initial findings in \u201cA search for circularly polarized emission from young exoplanets,\u201d published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The astronomers conducted a search of star […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":50418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174,200,175],"tags":[],"section":[140,139],"display_categories":[],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[158,161],"class_list":["post-50417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-in-brief","category-research","section-science","section-science-technology","uwmnews-feed-letters-science","uwmnews-feed-hard-science"],"yoast_head":"\n
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