New research has concentrated on the role of a magnetosphere in protecting planets from solar winds. According to researchers, the link between a planet and its sun is essential.

The interplay between the Sun and Earth was crucial for making the planet livable; a balance between a sun that provides energy and a planet that can protect itself from the harshest solar emissions. The sun steadily emits light, energy and a constant flow of particles called the solar wind that bathes the planets as it travels out into space.

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The sun also erupts in coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The Earth's magnetosphere protects the planet from the solar winds and the CMEs, but researchers said severe ones can still disturb communication systems.

But some planets, like Venus, don't have protective magnetospheres and this can be bad news.

"What if Earth didn't have that protective magnetosphere? Is a magnetosphere a prerequisite for a planet to support life? The jury is still out on that, but we examine such questions by looking at planets without magnetospheres, like Venus," said Glyn Collinson, first author on the paper at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Learning just why a small CME had such a strong impact may have profound consequences for understanding what makes a planet hospitable for life.

CMEs are categorized into two. First, those fast enough to drive a shock wave in front of them as they barrel away from the sun, and those that move more slowly, like a fog rolling in. Fast CMEs have been observed at other planets and are known to affect atmospheric escape, but no one has previously observed what a slow one could do.

The effects of the small CME built up over time and ripped away part of Venus' atmosphere and pulled it out into space. This observation doesn't prove that every small CME would have such an effect, but makes it clear that such a thing was possible.

They study suggested without a magnetosphere, a planet's atmosphere is intensely vulnerable to space weather events from the Sun.

The study appeared in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

TagsSmall Eruptions Cause Serious Damage to Planets Without Magnetospheres, Small Eruptions, solar flares, Magnetosphere, solar winds, space exploration