Live Science
April 3, 2023
On Earth, we often take our planet’s magnetic field for granted. It protects living creatures from the sun’s rays, draws compass needles north and even creates beautiful auroras. Other worlds in our solar system have magnetic fields too — but what about Earth-like planets around other stars? New research may have revealed a promising lead.
Recent observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescopes in New Mexico revealed evidence of a magnetic field on the rocky exoplanet YZ Ceti b, which orbits a star about 12 light-years away from Earth. This is the first possible detection of a magnetic field on a planet beyond our solar system, according to a study published April 3 in the journal Nature Astronomy(opens in new tab).