{"id":229140,"date":"2026-01-16T01:31:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/hidden-magma-oceans-could-shield-rocky-exoplanets-from-harmful-radiation"},"modified":"2026-01-16T01:31:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:31:53","slug":"hidden-magma-oceans-could-shield-rocky-exoplanets-from-harmful-radiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/hidden-magma-oceans-could-shield-rocky-exoplanets-from-harmful-radiation","title":{"rendered":"Hidden magma oceans could shield rocky exoplanets from harmful radiation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/hidden-magma-oceans-could-shield-rocky-exoplanets-from-harmful-radiation.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Deep beneath the surface of distant exoplanets known as super-Earths, oceans of molten rock may be doing something extraordinary: powering magnetic fields strong enough to shield entire planets from dangerous cosmic radiation and other harmful high-energy particles.<\/p>\n<p>Earth\u2019s magnetic field is generated by movement in its liquid iron outer core\u2014a process known as a dynamo\u2014but larger rocky worlds like super-Earths might have solid or fully liquid cores that cannot produce magnetic fields in the same way.<\/p>\n<p>In a paper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41550-025-02729-x\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Astronomy<\/i>, University of Rochester researchers, including Miki Nakajima, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, report an alternative source: a deep layer of molten rock called a basal magma ocean (BMO). The findings could reshape how scientists think about planetary interiors and have implications for the habitability of planets beyond our solar system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deep beneath the surface of distant exoplanets known as super-Earths, oceans of molten rock may be doing something extraordinary: powering magnetic fields strong enough to shield entire planets from dangerous cosmic radiation and other harmful high-energy particles. Earth\u2019s magnetic field is generated by movement in its liquid iron outer core\u2014a process known as a dynamo\u2014but [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}