Overview

• Chandra measured X-ray flux from the M-dwarf star irradiating TOI 1227b and found a mass-loss rate of around 10^12 grams per second.
• At this rate, the planet is shedding a full Earth atmosphere every 200 years and could be stripped bare within about one billion years.
• TOI 1227b orbits at roughly one-fifth the distance between Mercury and the Sun around a fully convective red dwarf 330 light-years away.
• With an estimated age of eight million years, the planet is the second-youngest transiting exoplanet and a critical test case for early atmospheric evolution.
• The peer-reviewed study by Varga and colleagues has been accepted by The Astrophysical Journal and will guide future multiwavelength follow-up studies.