The new "sister of the solar system", consisting of seven planets orbiting the supercold dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, was initially perceived as a potentially habitable system. We were "promised" both liquid water and a temperate climate on the surface of the planets. In general, it would seem - the ideal interstellar resort just 39 light years from us. But, the closer scientists look at this system, the less resort it begins to look.
Astronomers recently announced that TRAPPIST-1, despite its size, has a very fiery disposition. And from this we can make two assumptions: either the planets of this system have some kind of super-steep magnetosphere that protects their surface from the effects of the destructive radiation of the star, or we are looking at another set of lifeless boulders, albeit planetary in size.
A team from the Konkoy Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, led by astronomer Christian Wied, decided to analyze the brightness characteristics of TRAPPIST-1, available in the photometric data collected by the Kepler space telescope as part of the K2 mission, and eventually came to disappointing conclusions.
During the 80-day period under study, scientists noted 42 high-energy flares on the surface of TRAPPIST-1, including 5 multi-flares of radiation. In the case of the latter, we are talking about at once multiple outbursts of destructive energy ejected by the star simultaneously in different directions. At the same time, the strongest single flash recorded by scientists was almost similar in power to that that our Earth witnessed in 1859 as part of the so-called "Carrington event". Had it happened now, we would have expected a global failure of at least all communication systems. As for the case of 1859, all telegraph lines were out of order. The night sky was lit up with such a bright aurora that it even woke up the gold diggers in the Rocky Mountains (western USA), who thought that it was already morning, although it was dead night outside.
But, if life on Earth was able to survive such outbreaks as the "Carrington event", then why not at least hypothetically assume that, at least on three of the seven planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system, life could not have survived (if it was there at all ever been)?
The first thing to consider when answering this question is that the average time between such flares was only 28 hours. That is, in this case we are talking about an almost constant "bombing". Moreover, scientists say that solar storms created by flares on TRAPPIST-1 would then be hundreds, if not thousands of times more powerful than those that our Earth had to experience.
According to an independent study published last year, after one of these powerful outbursts, it took the planet about 30,000 years to rebuild its atmosphere. Therefore, you understand that in 28 hours the planet is unlikely to be able to restore anything. In addition, all the TRAPPIST-1 planets are located much closer to the star than our planets are in relation to the Sun. In other words, from this we can conclude that such a bombardment with highly charged particles will surely destroy any stability of their atmosphere, making it almost impossible for any, even the most primitive life forms to survive.
"The frequent and powerful flares of TRAPPIST-1 would most likely have a catastrophic effect on any possible life on the planets of this system, as their atmosphere would be continuously exposed to the powerful impact of highly charged particles, without having time to recover," the team concluded.
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Digging even deeper into this issue, Evan Gough of the Universe Today portal notes that the Earth's magnetic field protects all of us from the most destructive effects of solar flares, but it is unlikely that the TRAPPIST-1 system planets have the same impenetrable shield.
"This study indicates that the planets of the TRAPPIST system would need to have a magnetosphere of tens, if not hundreds of Oersted (a unit of magnetic field strength), while the average strength of the earth's magnetic field is about 0.5 Oersted", - comments by Gough.
"So how are the TRAPPIST-1 planets capable of producing a magnetosphere that is powerful and dense enough to be able to protect their atmosphere?"
In general, the conclusion is that the affairs of the "sister" of our solar system are really nasty. The news, I must say, is very sad, especially after that flurry of joy, which was caused by the discovery of a world that at first glance is very similar to ours. Even Google managed to rejoice at such news, having created a thematic "doodle" on this topic:
In the end, I would like to note that the results of this study are currently undergoing peer review by the Astrophysical Journal, so something may change before publication. But, if we take into account the results of previous studies, then the picture in relation to the habitability potential of the TRAPPIST-1 system really looms more and more gloomy.
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK
