‘Coherent’ radio signal detected from planet 12 light-years away – raising hopes it is HABITABLE

If there really are aliens, they probably have working compasses.

That’s because scientists have picked up “coherent” radio signals from a planet 12 light-years away from Earth, suggesting a magnetic field.

Magnetic fields are essential to a habitable planet, as they protect all life from bombardment by cosmic rays and charged particles.

Researchers at the US National Science Foundation say the radio signal came from a rocky planet called YZ Ceti b, which orbits the small red dwarf star YZ Ceti.

It likely originated from an interaction between the planet’s magnetic field and the star it orbits, similar to the aurora borealis — or northern lights — here on Earth.

“The search for potentially habitable or life-supporting worlds in other solar systems depends in part on being able to determine whether rocky, Earth-like exoplanets actually have magnetic fields,” said Joe Pesce, program director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

“This research not only shows that this particular rocky exoplanet likely has a magnetic field, but also offers a promising method to find more.”

The Earth’s magnetic field is a layer of electrical charge that completely surrounds the Earth and extends into space.

It is largely generated by the superheated, swirling liquid iron that makes up our planet’s outer core, 3,000 km below our feet.

As heat escapes from the inner core, the iron moves in convection currents and the movement generates powerful electrical currents.

Due to the rotation of the earth on its axis, these currents form a magnetic field.

In addition to making compasses work, the magnetic field deflects charged particles fired from the sun, known as the “solar wind,” as well as cosmic rays from space.

Without this protective layer, these particles would likely remove the ozone layer, our only line of defense against harmful UV rays.

Therefore, a magnetic field is believed to be one of the essential ingredients in making a planet habitable, as it can prevent the atmosphere from wearing away.

“Whether a planet with an atmosphere survives or not may depend on whether the planet has a strong magnetic field or not,” said Sebastian Pineda, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado.

So when scientists discovered a repeating radio signal emanating from YZ Ceti b with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array Telescope, it sparked hope that it could sustain life.

The fact that it could be detected so far away indicates that it is very strong, suggesting that the planet’s magnetic field is as well.

“This tells us new information about the environment around stars,” Pineda said.

The Earth’s magnetic field can attract some of the sun’s charged particles, causing them to collide with the atoms in the upper atmosphere, such as oxygen and nitrogen.

When they do this, some of the energy in the collisions is converted into the green-blue light – known as the northern lights or aurora borealis.

This is the only visual representation of the magnetic field that we can experience, but otherwise it is invisible.

In the new study, published in Nature Astronomythe authors describe the signals as “auroral radio emissions.”

That’s because they think the radio waves are the result of interactions similar to those of aurora borealis.

When charged particles erupt from YZ Ceti, some of them bounce off YZ Ceti b’s magnetic field to interact with the star’s magnetic field instead.

This causes an aurora on the star itself, resulting in the radio waves being detected on Earth.

“There should also be aurora on the planet if it has its own atmosphere,” said Jackie Villadsen, an astronomer at Bucknell University.

The fact that the star and planet are close together – YZ Ceti b completes a full orbit in just two days – means that these interactions, and the resulting radio waves, are quite common.

Villadsen said, “These planets are way too close to their stars for life to exist anywhere, but because they’re so close, the planet sort of plows through a lot of stuff coming off the star.”

“If the planet has a magnetic field and plows through enough stardust, the star will emit bright radio waves.”

This gives the researchers a good opportunity to conclude whether magnetic fields on distant planets are actually observable from Earth.

Because they are invisible, they are notoriously difficult to identify, so it is similarly difficult to conclude that the planets they orbit are habitable.

If it does have a magnetic field, YZ Ceti b is a particularly strong candidate for a habitable exoplanet — or outer solar system planet — because it is rocky and similar in size to Earth.

Despite a result “no one has seen before,” the team says they are still waiting for “very strong confirmation of planet-induced radio waves.”

Pineda said, “Many new radio facilities are coming online and are planned for the future.

“Once we show that this really happens, we can do it more systematically. We’re at the beginning.’