Researchers have confirmed the first coronal mass ejection observed from a star other than the Sun. A LOFAR radio burst verified with ESA’s XMM‑Newton traced the eruption to the red dwarf StKM 1‑1262, about 130 light‑years away. The CME traveled at roughly 1,491 miles per second — fast enough to strip a nearby planet’s atmosphere — raising new concerns about habitability around common red dwarfs.
First Confirmed Planet‑Stripping CME from Another Star — Red Dwarf Eruption Raises Habitability Concerns
Researchers have confirmed the first coronal mass ejection observed from a star other than the Sun. A LOFAR radio burst verified with ESA’s XMM‑Newton traced the eruption to the red dwarf StKM 1‑1262, about 130 light‑years away. The CME traveled at roughly 1,491 miles per second — fast enough to strip a nearby planet’s atmosphere — raising new concerns about habitability around common red dwarfs.
01:27 PM, 11/13/2025Science
Astronomers confirm first coronal mass ejection from a star beyond the Sun
Skywatchers recently enjoyed bright auroras as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from our Sun lit up Earth’s atmosphere. Now astronomers have identified a similar, but far more extreme, event coming from another star. A new study published in Nature confirms, for the first time, a CME that actually escaped a star’s magnetic field and raced into space.
How the discovery was made
The detection began with a short, intense radio burst observed by the LOFAR telescope array. Follow-up observations with the European Space Agency’s XMM‑Newton X‑ray observatory traced the emission to a red dwarf called StKM 1‑1262, about 130 light‑years from Earth. Researchers concluded the signal could only be produced if plasma had broken free of the star’s magnetic bubble — i.e., a CME.
“Astronomers have wanted to spot a CME on another star for decades,” said Joe Callingham of ASTRON. “Previous work hinted at stellar CMEs, but this is the first clear case showing material has definitively escaped into space.”
The event and its power
Red dwarfs are smaller, cooler and dimmer than the Sun. StKM 1‑1262 has roughly half the Sun’s mass but a magnetic field about 300 times stronger. The confirmed CME traveled at approximately 1,491 miles per second — a speed reached by only about one in 2,000 CMEs from our Sun. At that velocity, a CME like this could strip the atmosphere from any planet orbiting nearby.
Why it matters
Most known exoplanets orbit red dwarfs, so these stars play a central role in the search for life beyond Earth. If red dwarfs commonly produce extreme CMEs, intense stellar weather could erode planetary atmospheres and make long‑term habitability far less likely. The finding will force astronomers to factor extreme space weather into models of atmospheric retention and habitability for planets around small stars.
“Intense space weather may be even more extreme around smaller stars — the primary hosts of potentially habitable exoplanets,” said ESA researcher Henrik Eklund, a co‑author on the paper.
Bottom line: This discovery is a technical milestone and a reminder that stellar storms can be powerful enough to shape — or destroy — the atmospheres of nearby worlds. Future observations will determine how common such events are and how severely they limit the prospects for life around red dwarfs.