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By NASA
Artist’s concept of the star HIP 67522 with a flare erupting toward an orbiting planet, HIP 67522 b. A second planet, HIP 67522 c, is shown in the background. Janine Fohlmeister, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam The Discovery
A giant planet some 400 light-years away, HIP 67522 b, orbits its parent star so tightly that it appears to cause frequent flares from the star’s surface, heating and inflating the planet’s atmosphere.
Key Facts
On planet Earth, “space weather” caused by solar flares might disrupt radio communications, or even damage satellites. But Earth’s atmosphere protects us from truly harmful effects, and we orbit the Sun at a respectable distance, out of reach of the flares themselves.
Not so for planet HIP 67522 b. A gas giant in a young star system – just 17 million years old – the planet takes only seven days to complete one orbit around its star. A “year,” in other words, lasts barely as long as a week on Earth. That places the planet perilously close to the star. Worse, the star is of a type known to flare – especially in their youth.
In this case, the proximity of the planet appears to result in fairly frequent flaring.
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The star and the planet form a powerful but likely a destructive bond. In a manner not yet fully understood, the planet hooks into the star’s magnetic field, triggering flares on the star’s surface; the flares whiplash energy back to the planet. Combined with other high-energy radiation from the star, the flare-induced heating appears to have increased the already steep inflation of the planet’s atmosphere, giving HIP 67522 b a diameter comparable to our own planet Jupiter despite having just 5% of Jupiter’s mass.
This might well mean that the planet won’t stay in the Jupiter size-range for long. One effect of being continually pummeled with intense radiation could be a loss of atmosphere over time. In another 100 million years, that could shrink the planet to the status of a “hot Neptune,” or, with a more radical loss of atmosphere, even a “sub-Neptune,” a planet type smaller than Neptune that is common in our galaxy but lacking in our solar system.
Fun Facts
Four hundred light-years is much too far away to capture images of stellar flares striking orbiting planets. So how did a science team led by Netherlands astronomer Ekaterina Ilin discover this was happening? They used space-borne telescopes, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExoPlanets Telescope), to track flares on the star, and also to trace the path of the planet’s orbit.
Both telescopes use the “transit” method to determine the diameter of a planet and the time it takes to orbit its star. The transit is a kind of mini-eclipse. As the planet crosses the star’s face, it causes a tiny dip in starlight reaching the telescope. But the same observation method also picks up sudden stabs of brightness from the star – the stellar flares. Combining these observations over five years’ time and applying rigorous statistical analysis, the science team revealed that the planet is zapped with six times more flares than it would be without that magnetic connection.
The Discoverers
A team of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, led by Ekaterina Ilin of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, published their paper on the planet-star connection, “Close-in planet induces flares on its host star,” in the journal Nature on July 2, 2025.
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By NASA
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NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds
NASA is launching rockets from a remote Pacific island to study mysterious, high-altitude cloud-like structures that can disrupt critical communication systems. The mission, called Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics, or SEED, opens its three-week launch window from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Friday, June 13.
The atmospheric features SEED is studying are known as Sporadic-E layers, and they create a host of problems for radio communications. When they are present, air traffic controllers and marine radio users may pick up signals from unusually distant regions, mistaking them for nearby sources. Military operators using radar to see beyond the horizon may detect false targets — nicknamed “ghosts” — or receive garbled signals that are tricky to decipher. Sporadic-E layers are constantly forming, moving, and dissipating, so these disruptions can be difficult to anticipate.
An animated illustration depicts Sporadic-E layers forming in the lower portions of the ionosphere, causing radio signals to reflect back to Earth before reaching higher layers of the ionosphere. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab Sporadic-E layers form in the ionosphere, a layer of Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from about 40 to 600 miles (60 to 1,000 kilometers) above sea level. Home to the International Space Station and most Earth-orbiting satellites, the ionosphere is also where we see the greatest impacts of space weather. Primarily driven by the Sun, space weather causes myriad problems for our communications with satellites and between ground systems. A better understanding of the ionosphere is key to keeping critical infrastructure running smoothly.
The ionosphere is named for the charged particles, or ions, that reside there. Some of these ions come from meteors, which burn up in the atmosphere and leave traces of ionized iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium, and potassium suspended in the sky. These “heavy metals” are more massive than the ionosphere’s typical residents and tend to sink to lower altitudes, below 90 miles (140 kilometers). Occasionally, they clump together to create dense clusters known as Sporadic-E layers.
The Perseids meteor shower peaks in mid-August. Meteors like these can deposit metals into Earth’s ionosphere that can help create cloud-like structures called Sporadic-E layers. NASA/Preston Dyches “These Sporadic-E layers are not visible to naked eye, and can only be seen by radars. In the radar plots, some layers appear like patchy and puffy clouds, while others spread out, similar to an overcast sky, which we call blanketing Sporadic-E layer” said Aroh Barjatya, the SEED mission’s principal investigator and a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The SEED team includes scientists from Embry-Riddle, Boston College in Massachusetts, and Clemson University in South Carolina.
“There’s a lot of interest in predicting these layers and understanding their dynamics because of how they interfere with communications,” Barjatya said.
A Mystery at the Equator
Scientists can explain Sporadic-E layers when they form at midlatitudes but not when they appear close to Earth’s equator — such as near Kwajalein Atoll, where the SEED mission will launch.
In the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Sporadic-E layers can be thought of as particle traffic jams.
Think of ions in the atmosphere as miniature cars traveling single file in lanes defined by Earth’s magnetic field lines. These lanes connect Earth end to end — emerging near the South Pole, bowing around the equator, and plunging back into the North Pole.
A conceptual animation shows Earth’s magnetic field. The blue lines radiating from Earth represent the magnetic field lines that charged particles travel along. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab At Earth’s midlatitudes, the field lines angle toward the ground, descending through atmospheric layers with varying wind speeds and directions. As the ions pass through these layers, they experience wind shear — turbulent gusts that cause their orderly line to clump together. These particle pileups form Sporadic-E layers.
But near the magnetic equator, this explanation doesn’t work. There, Earth’s magnetic field lines run parallel to the surface and do not intersect atmospheric layers with differing winds, so Sporadic-E layers shouldn’t form. Yet, they do — though less frequently.
“We’re launching from the closest place NASA can to the magnetic equator,” Barjatya said, “to study the physics that existing theory doesn’t fully explain.”
Taking to the Skies
To investigate, Barjatya developed SEED to study low-latitude Sporadic-E layers from the inside. The mission relies on sounding rockets — uncrewed suborbital spacecraft carrying scientific instruments. Their flights last only a few minutes but can be launched precisely at fleeting targets.
Beginning the night of June 13, Barjatya and his team will monitor ALTAIR (ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar), a high-powered, ground-based radar system at the launch site, for signs of developing Sporadic-E layers. When conditions are right, Barjatya will give the launch command. A few minutes later, the rocket will be in flight.
The SEED science team and mission management team in front of the ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR). The SEED team will use ALTAIR to monitor the ionosphere for signs of Sporadic-E layers and time the launch. U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command On ascent, the rocket will release colorful vapor tracers. Ground-based cameras will track the tracers to measure wind patterns in three dimensions. Once inside the Sporadic-E layer, the rocket will deploy four subpayloads — miniature detectors that will measure particle density and magnetic field strength at multiple points. The data will be transmitted back to the ground as the rocket descends.
On another night during the launch window, the team will launch a second, nearly identical rocket to collect additional data under potentially different conditions.
Barjatya and his team will use the data to improve computer models of the ionosphere, aiming to explain how Sporadic-E layers form so close to the equator.
“Sporadic-E layers are part of a much larger, more complicated physical system that is home to space-based assets we rely on every day,” Barjatya said. “This launch gets us closer to understanding another key piece of Earth’s interface to space.”
By Miles Hatfield
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Ionosphere Missions NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Sounding Rockets Sounding Rockets Program The Solar System The Sun Uncategorized Wallops Flight Facility Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics Explore More
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By NASA
ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a sparkling cloudscape from one of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors, a dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Located 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa, the Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the Milky Way’s many small satellite galaxies.
This view of dusty gas clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud is possible thanks to Hubble’s cameras, such as the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) that collected the observations for this image. WFC3 holds a variety of filters, and each lets through specific wavelengths, or colors, of light. This image combines observations made with five different filters, including some that capture ultraviolet and infrared light that the human eye cannot see.
The wispy gas clouds in this image resemble brightly colored cotton candy. When viewing such a vividly colored cosmic scene, it is natural to wonder whether the colors are ‘real’. After all, Hubble, with its 7.8-foot-wide (2.4 m) mirror and advanced scientific instruments, doesn’t bear resemblance to a typical camera! When image-processing specialists combine raw filtered data into a multi-colored image like this one, they assign a color to each filter. Visible-light observations typically correspond to the color that the filter allows through. Shorter wavelengths of light such as ultraviolet are usually assigned blue or purple, while longer wavelengths like infrared are typically red.
This color scheme closely represents reality while adding new information from the portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans cannot see. However, there are endless possible color combinations that can be employed to achieve an especially aesthetically pleasing or scientifically insightful image.
Learn how Hubble images are taken and processed.
Text credit: ESA/Hubble
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving fresh clues about the origin of a new class of mysterious objects.
As described in our press release, a team of astronomers combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the SKA [Square Kilometer Array] Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope on Wajarri Country in Australia to study the antics of the discovered object, known as ASKAP J1832−0911 (ASKAP J1832 for short).
ASKAP J1832 belongs to a class of objects called “long period radio transients” discovered in 2022 that vary in radio wave intensity in a regular way over tens of minutes. This is thousands of times longer than the length of the repeated variations seen in pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have repeated variations multiple times a second. ASKAP J1832 cycles in radio wave intensity every 44 minutes, placing it into this category of long period radio transients.
Using Chandra, the team discovered that ASKAP J1832 is also regularly varying in X-rays every 44 minutes. This is the first time that such an X-ray signal has been found in a long period radio transient.
In this composite image, X-rays from Chandra (blue) have been combined with infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (cyan, light blue, teal and orange), and radio from LOFAR (red). An inset shows a more detailed view of the immediate area around this unusual object in X-ray and radio light.
A wide field image of ASKAP J1832 in X-ray, radio, and infrared light.X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Using Chandra and the SKA Pathfinder, a team of astronomers found that ASKAP J1832 also dropped off in X-rays and radio waves dramatically over the course of six months. This combination of the 44-minute cycle in X-rays and radio waves in addition to the months-long changes is unlike anything astronomers have seen in the Milky Way galaxy.
A close-up image of ASKAP J1832 in X-ray and radio light.X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk The research team argues that ASKAP J1832 is unlikely to be a pulsar or a neutron star pulling material from a companion star because its properties do not match the typical intensities of radio and X-ray signals of those objects. Some of ASKAP J1832’s properties could be explained by a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field, called a magnetar, with an age of more than half a million years. However, other features of ASKAP J1832 — such as its bright and variable radio emission — are difficult to explain for such a relatively old magnetar.
On the sky, ASKAP J1832 appears to lie within a supernova remnant, the remains of an exploded star, which often contain a neutron star formed by the supernova. However, the research team determined that the proximity is probably a coincidence and two are not associated with each other, encouraging them to consider the possibility that ASKAP J1832 does not contain a neutron star. They concluded that an isolated white dwarf does not explain the data but that a white dwarf star with a companion star might. However, it would require the strongest magnetic field ever known for a white dwarf in our galaxy.
A paper by Ziteng Wang (Curtin University in Australia) and collaborators describing these results appears in the journal Nature. Another team led by Di Li from Tsinghua University in China independently discovered this source using the DAocheng Radio Telescope and submitted their paper to the arXiv on the same day as the team led by Dr Wang. They did not report the X-ray behavior described here.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description:
This release features two composite images of a mysterious object, possibly an unusual neutron star or white dwarf, residing near the edge of a supernova remnant. The object, known as ASKAP J1832, has been intriguing astronomers from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope with its antics and bizarre behavior.
Astronomers have discovered that ASKAP J1832 cycles in radio wave intensity every 44 minutes. This is thousands of times longer than pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have repeated variations multiple times a second. Using Chandra, the team discovered that the object is also regularly varying in X-rays every 44 minutes. This is the first time such an X-ray signal has been found in a long period radio transient like ASKAP J1832.
In the primary composite image of this release, the curious object is shown in the context of the supernova remnant and nearby gas clouds. Radio data is red and and X-ray sources seen with Chandra are in dark blue. The supernova remnant is the large, wispy, red oval ring occupying the lower right of the image. The curious object sits inside this ring, to our right of center; a tiny purple speck in a sea of colorful specks. The gas cloud shows infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and resembles a mottled green, teal blue, and golden orange cloud occupying our upper left half of the square image.
The second, close-up image shows a view of the immediate area around ASKAP J1832. In this composite image, infrared data from Spitzer has been removed, eliminating the mottled cloud and most of the colorful background specks. Here, near the inside edge of the hazy red ring, the curious object resembles a bright white dot with a hot pink outer edge, set against the blackness of space. Upon close inspection, the hot pink outer edge is revealed to have three faint spikes emanating from the surface.
The primary and close-up images are presented both unadorned, and with labels, including fine white circles identifying ASKAP J1832.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated May 28, 2025 EditorLee Mohon Related Terms
Chandra X-Ray Observatory Marshall Astrophysics Marshall Space Flight Center Neutron Stars Pulsars Stars The Universe
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