Kartavya Kant Tiwari

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, together with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, has revealed a “baby” exoplanet rapidly losing its atmosphere. The planet, named TOI 1227 b, orbits a faint red dwarf star and is only about 8 million years old. Powerful X-ray blasts from the star are stripping away the planet's thick gas envelope. Models indicate TOI 1227 b is shedding an amount of gas equal to Earth's entire atmosphere every ~200 years. The team notes the planet's atmosphere “simply cannot withstand the high X-ray dose it's receiving”. This finding offers a rare, real-time look at atmospheric erosion, showing how a young world can be dramatically reshaped by its star early on. Observations of an Eroding Planet According to the study, astronomers used Chandra's X-ray data (and earlier Hubble observations of the planet's transit) to study TOI 1227 b. This Jupiter-sized world orbits extremely close to its star – much closer than Mercury is to the Sun – and ...