Astronomers have achieved a decades-long goal by definitively detecting a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a star other than our Sun. Using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton space observatory and the LOFAR radio telescope, researchers observed an explosive burst of material flung into space from a red dwarf star located about 130 light-years away. This discovery marks the first confirmed observation of such an event on another star, moving beyond previous inferences to prove material has definitively escaped a stellar system.
The detection was made possible by a short, intense burst of radio waves, a signal produced as the CME traveled through the star’s layers and created a shock wave. This specific radio signal is a definitive indicator that material has completely escaped the star’s powerful magnetic bubble. New data processing methods for LOFAR were crucial for spotting this signal. The team then used XMM-Newton to determine the star’s properties in X-ray light, which was essential for interpreting the radio data and confirming the CME’s motion and context.
The star in question is a red dwarf, a type far different from our Sun. It is smaller, cooler, and has a magnetic field 300 times more powerful. Such stars are the most common hosts of known exoplanets in the Milky Way. The observed CME was extraordinarily powerful, moving at a super-fast 2400 km per second—a speed rarely seen in solar CMEs. It was dense and fast enough to completely strip away the atmospheres of any closely orbiting planets.
This finding has profound implications for the search for life. A planet’s habitability is traditionally linked to its position in the star’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. However, if a star is highly active, regular powerful CMEs can erode or entirely remove a planet’s atmosphere, leaving a barren rock. This suggests that intense space weather around smaller stars like red dwarfs could make it difficult for orbiting planets to retain their atmospheres and remain habitable over time.
The work opens a new frontier for studying space weather around other stars and demonstrates the power of collaborative observation, proving that neither telescope alone would have been sufficient for this breakthrough.
