Young Stars Reduce X-ray Emissions Surprisingly Quickly | NASA Chandra
Scientists have found that young stellar cousins of our Sun are calming down and dimming in their x-ray output more quickly than previously thought, according to a new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
This quieting of young stars is a benefit for the prospects for life on orbiting planets around these stars—not a threat.
Astronomers used Chandra and other telescopes to monitor how powerful radiation from young stars—often in the form of dangerous x-rays—can pummel planets surrounding them. They did not know, however, how long this high-energy barrage continued.
This latest study looked at eight clusters of stars between the ages of 45 million and 750 million years old. The researchers found that Sun-like stars older than about 100 million years in these clusters unleashed only about a quarter to a third of the x-rays they expected. For context, our Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, so significantly older than the stellar cousins in this study.
These real observations reveal a natural ‘quieting’ of young Sun-like stars in x-rays. The researchers found the generation of magnetic fields inside the stars becomes less efficient.
In fact, this calming could be a boon to the formation of life on planets around stars that are younger versions of our own Sun. This is because large amounts of x-rays can erode a planet’s atmosphere and prevent formation of molecules necessary for organic life as we know it. On average, three million year old stars with a mass equal to the Sun produce about a thousand times more x-rays than today's Sun. Meanwhile, 100 million year old solar-mass stars are about 40 times brighter in x-rays than the present Sun.
The scientists in this new study suggest it is possible that humans owe our existence to our Sun quieting down several billion years ago.
By studying X-rays from stars that are hundreds of millions of years old, we have filled in a large gap in our understanding of stellar evolution.
Trumpler 3 and NGC 2353 are so-called open clusters that contains hundreds of young stars. These stars are tied to each other through gravity, having been formed from the same clouds of gas. Many of these stars have masses that are similar to our Sun, but are much younger.
In these new composite images of Trumpler 3 and NGC 2353, X-rays from Chandra (purple) have been combined with an optical image from the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii (red, green, and blue). Another star cluster from the new Chandra study, NGC 2301 is shown in the same color schemes with the X-ray and optical data.
Credit: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
Duration: 3 minutes
Release Date: April 14, 2026
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