A team of researchers from different international institutions has discovered that most stars have an intense magnetic field inside them. In fact, it is up to ten million times more powerful than Earth’s in those that are only slightly more massive than the Sun.
To determine this, these astronomers have analyzed a sample of 3,600 red giants, cold and very large objects, with a mass of up to nine times that of the king star, which have already depleted the hydrogen in their nucleus. This could be precisely the fate of the Sun in 5,000 or 6,000 million years. From the data collected by NASA’s Kepler probe, whose main objective is the detection of extrasolar planets, scientists have observed the traces of a powerful magnetic field in more than 700. Moreover, the astrophysicist Dennis Stello, of the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Sydney, in Australia, which has coordinated the study, highlights that with this information they have been able to find out that this same phenomenon is very common in stars with a lower mass, between 1.5 and 2 the solar mass.
“In general, it was thought that only between 5 and 10% of stars had this peculiarity, so the presence of a magnetic field was not considered fundamental for the development of models of stellar evolution. Our results clearly show that this aspect needs to be reviewed, “says Stello.
Now, Stello and his collaborators, who have published their conclusions in the journal Nature , hope that this work will allow us to refine our knowledge about the magnetic cycle of the Sun and its possible influence on the climate of our planet.
Image: ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO)
