Scientists have considered Kepler 438b as the most Earth-like and habitable planet ever found in the solar system, however this distant world apparently may seem not so hospitable anymore with new research regarding powerful radiation blasts.

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Since astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered this exoplanet with the aid of the Kepler Space Telescope in January this year, they also revealed that this small, rocky world that has been orbiting its host star Kepler 438, is almost the size of Earth and its orbit is an ideal distance from its star that can be conducive for liquid water, making it not too hot, to produce life.

Now, astronomers from the University of Warwick say otherwise, where they believe that this would-be hospitable planet that could potentially hold life is apparently deadly for micro organisms to thrive. New findings reveal how the surface of exoplanet Kepler 438b is blasted regularly with space radiation that can destroy its already tenuous atmosphere, making the planet lifeless.

According to astrophysicist David Armstrong, unlike the sun in our solar system, the star Kepler 438 is streaming extremely powerful flares every hundred days or so where each one is measured to be stronger than the sun's most powerful solar flare ever recorded. These flares can also be linked to coronal mass ejections that can damage and destroy any traces of life on the exoplanet.

He adds that if Kepler 438b did possess a magnetic field similar to Earth's, then the planet could have been protected from these radiation effects. However, if a magnetic field is still too weak to shield from these flares, the planet could risk losing its atmosphere where the surface will become irradiated with extreme UV and X-ray radiation, making life impossible to exist.

Kepler 438 is considered as a red dwarf star that emits superflares with energies of 100bn megatons of dynamite that are released every few hundred days. Scientists also believe that its coronal mass injections that are connected with the flares are more destructive for life to thrive on the alien world. 

According to researcher Chloe Pugh, when a coronal mass ejection erupts, this will increase the occurrence of more powerful flares and larger coronal mass ejections can strip away the atmosphere or any of it that's left of Kepler 438b, making it an uninhabitable world. Also, average temperatures on Kepler 438b reach at 60 degrees Celsius.

This new study is published in the journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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