A new research by University of Warwick researcher has suggested that the most Earth-like planet may have been made unfit to live in by huge quantities of radiation. The planet Kepler-438b’s atmosphere is thought to have been stripped away due to the emission of radiation from a superflaring Red Dwarf star, Kepler-438.

The superflares occur regularly in every few hundred days, and are roughly 10 times more powerful as compared to the ones ever recorded on the Sun and have energy equal to 100 billion megatons of TNT.

Although superflares themselves won’t have a major impact on the atmosphere of Kepler-438b, a hazardous phenomenon linked to powerful flares, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), can strip away any atmosphere, leaving it uninhabitable.

So far, Kepler-438b is the exoplanet with the highest recorded Earth Similarity Index. It has a size and temperature similar to the planet Earth but is in nearer to the Red Dwarf than the Earth is to the Sun.

Dr David Armstrong of the University of Warwick's Astrophysics Group, lead researcher, explained, “Unlike the Earth's relatively quiet sun, Kepler-438 emits strong flares every few hundred days, each one stronger than the most powerful recorded flare on the Sun”. Dr David added that it is possible that the flares were linked to coronal mass ejections, which could be dangerous for habitability of the planet.