Coming in Hot – NASA’s Chandra Checks Habitability of Exoplanets

Aug 05, 2024

This graphic shows a three-dimensional map of stars near the Sun. The blue haloes represent stars observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. Astronomers are using these X-ray data to determine how habitable exoplanets may be based on whether they receive lethal radiation from the stars they orbit. This research will help guide observations with the next generation of telescopes aiming to make the first images of planets like Earth. Researchers used almost 10 days of Chandra observations and 26 days of XMM observations to examine the X-ray behavior of 57 nearby stars, some of them with known planets. Results were presented at the 244^th meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, by Breanna Binder (California State Polytechnic University in Pomona). To view the full article, visit: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2024/exoplanets/.