Assuming a suitable planet for either having intelligent beings or supporting colonists needs a significant magnetic field has it been determined whether such a magnetic field can be detected with equipment now in use or in development? If a planet has a magnetic field won't that field have an impact on it's star's solar wind. I know that just having a magnetic field does not make a planet habitable but conversely not having such a field seems to rule out the emergence of life and the ability to support it.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Unfortunately, I would think not. AFAIK we haven't the technology to even directly detect magnetic fields around planets in our own solar system. They've been inferred through observed effects and in the case of a couple planets magnetometer on spacecraft. Neither would be practical for planets that are many light-years distant.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein