European Astronomers Capture First Direct Evidence of Massive Stellar Explosion on Nearby Star
- MM24 News Desk
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
A team of European astronomers using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory and the LOFAR radio telescope has confirmed the first definitive sighting of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a distant star.
The colossal explosion, racing through space at a blistering 2,400 km per second, was powerful enough to strip the atmosphere from any Earth-like planet in its vicinity, reshaping our understanding of space weather and planetary habitability around the most common stars in our galaxy.
For decades, astronomers have hunted for concrete proof of these massive stellar eruptions occurring beyond our solar system. While we regularly observe CMEs on our Sun, where they can trigger beautiful auroras and occasionally disrupt satellites, spotting one on another star has remained elusive.
"Astronomers have wanted to spot a CME on another star for decades," says Joe Callingham of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), lead author of the new research published in Nature. "Previous findings have inferred that they exist, or hinted at their presence, but haven’t actually confirmed that material has definitively escaped out into space. We’ve now managed to do this for the first time."
The breakthrough, reported by the European Space Agency (ESA), came from a coordinated effort. The tell-tale sign was a short, intense burst of radio waves picked up by the sophisticated Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope.
This specific radio signal is the smoking gun, created as the ejected material punches through the star's powerful magnetic field and out into space. "This kind of radio signal just wouldn’t exist unless material had completely left the star’s bubble of powerful magnetism," adds Callingham. "In other words: it’s caused by a CME."
The star in question is a red dwarf located a relatively close 40 light-years away. Unlike our Sun, this star is a turbulent powerhouse, possessing a magnetic field 300 times more powerful and spinning 20 times faster. To fully understand the context of the radio signal, the team turned to ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory.
"We needed the sensitivity and frequency of LOFAR to detect the radio waves," explains co-author David Konijn, a PhD student at ASTRON. "And without XMM-Newton, we wouldn’t have been able to determine the CME’s motion or put it in a solar context, both crucial for proving what we’d found. Neither telescope alone would have been enough – we needed both."
The data painted a dramatic picture. The researchers calculated the CME was hurtling through space at an incredible 2,400 km per second, a speed only seen in the most extreme 1 of every 20 solar CMEs. According to the ESA report, this combination of extreme speed and density means the eruption would have been more than capable of completely eroding the protective atmosphere of any planet orbiting within the star's habitable zone.
This discovery has profound implications for the search for life beyond Earth. Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way and are the primary hosts of potentially habitable exoplanets. A planet may orbit in the "Goldilocks zone" where liquid water could exist, but if its star is frequently unleashing such violent eruptions, any chance for life could be stripped away.
"It seems that intense space weather may be even more extreme around smaller stars," says Henrik Eklund, an ESA research fellow. "This has important implications for how these planets keep hold of their atmospheres and possibly remain habitable over time."
The finding, made possible by new data processing methods developed at the Observatoire de Paris-PSL, opens an entirely new window for studying stellar behavior. "XMM-Newton is now helping us discover how CMEs vary by star," says ESA XMM-Newton Project Scientist Erik Kuulkers. "It also demonstrates the immense power of collaboration, which underpins all successful science. The discovery was a true team effort, and resolves the decades-long search for CMEs beyond the Sun."
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