coronal mass ejection Archives - Astrobiology

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Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Mars, Press Release, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

A Surprising Phenomenon Found In NASA Data From Mars

by Keith CowingJune 1, 2026June 1, 2026

Data beamed back from Mars by the NASA spacecraft MAVEN provides the first evidence that a phenomenon protecting planets from solar winds can occur in the atmospheres of worlds that […]

This artist’s impression shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) around another star. We see these eruptions coming often from the Sun. During a CME, massive amounts of material are flung out from our star, flooding the surrounding space. These dramatic expulsions shape and drive space weather, such as the dazzling auroras we see on Earth, and can chip away at the atmospheres of any nearby planets. -- ESA larger image

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

First Confirmed Sighting Of Explosive Burst On Nearby Star

by Keith CowingNovember 13, 2025November 13, 2025

The atmosphere-stripping ability of the CME is an exciting discovery for our hunt for life around other stars.

Sketch of the magnetospheric interaction in the TRAPPIST-1–TRAPPIST-1e system. The stellar wind velocity and IMF streamlines are drawn in green and white, respectively. The M dwarf star is shown as a yellow sphere, and the planet TRAPPIST-1e as a blue shaded circle. The planetary magnetic field lines (white) exhibit compression on the dayside and extension into a magnetotail. A bow shock structure forms upstream of the planet under a super-Alfvénic regime. The color scale represents normalized plasma density. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, TRAPPIST-1

MHD Simulations Preliminarily Predict The Habitability and Radio Emission of TRAPPIST-1e

by Keith CowingApril 24, 2025April 24, 2025

As the closest Earth-like exoplanet within the habitable zone of the M-dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, TRAPPIST-1e exhibits a magnetic field topology that is dependent on space weather conditions.

125 flares discovered in CM Draconis, stacked together and aligned to have a peak at 𝑡 = 0.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Proxima Centauri, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography, TRAPPIST-1

Identifying Flare Locations Through Exoplanet Transit Occultations

by Keith CowingJanuary 11, 2025

M dwarfs are the most common stars in the galaxy, with long lifespans, a high occurrence rate of rocky planets, and close-in habitable zones.

CME mass estimated through different ways plotted against flaring bolometric energy. KIC 8093473 is marked by the two red open stars connected by a dashed line. The two points correspond the CME masses estimated by different CME dynamical length scales (see the main text for the details). The four M-dwarf flares studied in Wang et al. (2021) and Wang et al. (2022) are denoted by the magenta open squares. The stellar CME candidates complied in Moschou et al. (2019) and one studied in Argiroffi et al. (2019) are shown by the solid blue points. The solar flare-CME events studied in Yashiro & Gopalswamy (2009) are denoted by the cyan circles. The best fit to these solar events obtained in Drake et al. (2013) is presented by the dashed line. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report

Possible Detection of A Flare-associated Coronal Mass Ejection on A M-dwarf

by Keith CowingMay 17, 2023May 17, 2023

We here report a probable detection of a stellar coronal mass ejection (CME) in active M dwarf KIC 8093473 by performing an analysis on its time resolved X-ray spectra observed […]