First coronal mass ejection from a star other than the sun observed

A team of researchers led by Costanza Argiroffi, an astronomer at the University of Palermo in Italy, has found evidence of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a star that was not our sun—the first ever observed. They reported their findings at this year's Cool Stars 20 meeting in Massachusetts.

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A coronal mass ejection occurs when a star spews a glob of plasma and charged particles from its corona into surrounding space. They quite often occur with our sun following a solar flare. In this new effort, the researchers found evidence of a CME from a large star (approximately three times the mass of the sun) called HR 9024—it is approximately 450 light-years from Earth.

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Researchers reported that they were studying data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory from a decade ago when they found what they claim is evidence of a CME.

They further report that they were looking at changes in wavelengths of X-rays (Doppler shifts) emitted from the star to study material in the corona, when they noticed material that appeared to move away from the star after a flare had ceased.

They reported that they detected the material moving back and forth in a loop extending out from the surface of the star and then back again

Researchers also reported that the ejected material was made up of approximately 1 billion trillion grams of material, which they note fell within predicted estimates