Ph.D. student’s NASA-funded study uncovers groundbreaking details about the evolution of young exoplanets

Rochester, New York – For many doctoral students, having a research paper published in a respected scientific journal is a career milestone. For Attila Varga, that achievement came with an unexpected bonus — seeing his work highlighted on NASA’s front page and reported by science news outlets around the globe.

Varga, a Ph.D. candidate in astrophysical sciences and technology at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), has been leading research into one of the youngest known exoplanets in the galaxy, a discovery that is offering new insight into how planets form and evolve. His findings reveal a dramatic and destructive relationship between the planet, TOI 1227 b, and its nearby host star, whose relentless X-ray radiation is literally stripping the young world of its atmosphere.

The exoplanet, which astronomers confirmed only recently, is the second youngest ever observed passing in front of its star. While early estimates suggested the planet was around 11 million years old, Varga’s detailed analysis placed its age at just 8 million years. In cosmic terms, that’s barely out of infancy — especially when compared to our own 5-billion-year-old Earth.

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The journey to this discovery began when Varga noticed something unusual. One of the young stars he had been monitoring, TOI 1227, was flagged by a separate NASA mission as a potential host to an exoplanet. After the planet’s existence was confirmed, Varga teamed up with his dissertation adviser, Joel Kastner, a professor in RIT’s School of Physics and Astronomy and the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, to dig deeper.

The team secured observation time with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of the most advanced space-based telescopes for detecting high-energy radiation. Their goal was to measure the star’s X-ray output, which turned out to be alarmingly high. Varga then led a series of advanced computer simulations to understand how such intense radiation would affect a young planet like TOI 1227 b.

The results were sobering. The constant bombardment of high-energy X-rays is blasting away the planet’s atmosphere, and its overall mass is expected to shrink over time.

“It’s almost unfathomable to imagine what is happening to this planet,” said Varga. “The planet’s atmosphere simply cannot withstand the high X-ray dose it’s receiving from its star.”

The implications of the study stretch beyond a single planet. By studying such young planetary systems, scientists can piece together how planets are born, how they change in their early years, and why some may become barren while others evolve into more stable worlds.

“When Attila told me that he had found an exoplanet host among the hundreds of young stars he had been studying, I have to say my jaw kind of dropped on the floor because it was such a significant discovery,” said Kastner. “You can learn a lot by looking at these very young planets to determine how our solar system came to be and if there are other solar systems like ours.”

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Varga’s work isn’t ending with TOI 1227 b. He, along with fellow Ph.D. student Ryan Butler and Kastner, recently secured additional Chandra observing time to study an exoplanet orbiting a star that is even younger than TOI 1227. The goal is to see if the destructive X-ray effect is common in other newborn planetary systems or if TOI 1227 b is an extreme case.

Their study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, is the result of international collaboration. In addition to Varga and Kastner, the research team included Alexander Binks from Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany, Moritz Guenther from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Simon Murphy from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

For Varga, working alongside experts from multiple countries and having direct access to NASA’s powerful telescopes have been defining elements of his graduate experience.

“I really like the research when the focus is X-ray astronomy,” said Varga. “It was really cool that we could propose time with Chandra and get the data back, and have such definite measurement of this young exoplanet host star’s X-ray radiation. It’s exciting, and it puts all the work in my classes and experience I’ve been getting together really nicely.”

That enthusiasm is shared by his adviser.

“Seeing him get to the place where he’s making major advances in exoplanet research with data collected from a major international observatory is wonderful,” said Kastner. “Even better, he’s done so by taking the research initiative and leading an international team of recognized experts in the field.”

The findings also serve as a reminder of the volatile nature of young stars. While planets are often imagined as stable, enduring worlds, their early years can be perilous. High-energy radiation from a host star can alter their atmospheres, change their compositions, and even strip them down to rocky cores. In the case of TOI 1227 b, its future appears tied to the intensity of its star’s activity — a cosmic environment that is far from forgiving.

By tracking these transformations, astronomers hope to answer broader questions: Could Earth have endured similar early bombardment? How many planets are lost to stellar violence before they have a chance to develop life-supporting conditions? And could some of the exoplanets we see today be the survivors of such trials?

For Varga, the excitement lies in the possibility that each new discovery adds another piece to the puzzle of planetary evolution. His research shows that even in the vast expanse of space, the story of a single young planet can speak volumes about the universe’s processes.

And while the idea of a planet’s atmosphere being stripped away by relentless X-ray blasts may seem harsh, it’s part of the reality of how planetary systems grow up. TOI 1227 b’s fate might be sealed, but the knowledge it provides will help scientists better understand countless other worlds — including the one we call home.