A powerful blast spotted from a dwarf star was strong enough to strip away the atmosphere of any Earth-like planets that might have been lurking close by, new research suggests.
The study, published Wednesday (Nov. 12) in the journal Nature, was the first to confirm a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a massive, high-speed blast of plasma — from a star besides the sun. As scientists search for habitable worlds, understanding how strongly and frequently stars erupt will be essential to figuring out where to center our search, the study's authors argue.
