LEWISBURG, Pa. — Jackie Villadsen is a professor of physics and astronomy at Bucknell University in Lewisburg. She loves teaching but is also passionate about her research. Lately, she and another researcher have been observing red dwarf stars. The first star they targeted is called YZ Ceti, which is smaller and cooler than the sun.
"It has a planet that is really, really close to it. The planet takes only two days to go around the star, whereas, for Earth, it takes 365 days to go around the sun," Prof. Villadsen said.
Prof. Villadsen says the star is 12 light years away from Earth.
"We were able to measure that this planet probably has a strong magnetic field similar to Earth's that creates a protective bubble around it," Prof. Villadsen said.
For life to exist in the universe, there must be air. To have air, scientists believe there must be a magnetic field. Villadsen says this planet could have an Earth-like magnetic field.
"If planets outside our solar system have magnetic fields, that is a protective force field that can help them hold on to their atmospheres so that they don't get blasted away by the star, so it's good for the prospects of life outside our solar system," Villadsen said.
Villadsen says this discovery is one of many steps needed to be made to learn about a planet's magnetic field.
"This is a really exciting step forward for us, but also it opens up new questions and things to do next, and we're definitely not done with answering this question of do planets outside the solar system have magnetic fields," Villadsen added.
Prof. Villadsen plans to continue this study.
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