What is it about?
Plants and animals would not survive without water on Earth. The sheer strength of Earth's magnetic field helps to maintain liquid water on our blue planet's surface, thereby making it possible for life to thrive. We have modelled the magnetic fields of exoplanets - planets beyond our solar system - and found very few have a magnetic field as strong as Earth.
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Why is it important?
Most detected exoplanets have very weak magnetic fields, so this is an important factor when searching for potentially habitable planets.
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This page is a summary of: Planetary Magnetism as a Parameter in Exoplanet Habitability, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, March 2019, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz667.
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