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Astronomers have spied on a stellar system located dozens of lightyears from Earth and have observed a fireworks show that is much more powerful than anything they have seen in our own solar system.
The results will be published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
A stellar phenomenon called a "coronal mass ejection" is explored in the study. Notsu explained that the sun shoots out these types of eruptions on a regular basis, and that they're made up of clouds of extremely-hot particles, which can hurtle through space at speeds of millions of miles per hour. If a coronal mass ejection hits Earth, it could cause a lot of problems, including the loss of satellites and power grids.
Notsu said that coronal mass ejections can have a serious impact on Earth and human society.
A new study led by Kosuke Namekata of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan suggests that they can get a lot worse.
Namekata, Nostu and their colleagues used telescopes on the ground and in space to peer at EK Draconis, which looks like a young version of the sun. The most powerful mass ejection ever recorded from a sun-like star was observed by the team in April 2020.
The weather in space can be very dangerous.
Notsu said that this kind of mass ejection could happen on our sun. "This observation may help us to better understand how similar events have affected Earth and even Mars over billions of years."
Flares erupt.
Notsu explained that a star can let loose a flare, or a bright burst of radiation, that can extend far out into space.
Scientists have observed that the sequence of events on the sun may be relatively quiet. Notsu and his colleagues published a study that showed that young sun-like stars around the galaxy seem to experience frequent superflares, like our own solar flares but hundreds or even hundreds of times more powerful.
It's possible that a superflare could happen on Earth's sun, but not very often. It got Notsu's team curious if a superflare could lead to an equally super mass ejection.
Notsu said that flares from the sun are smaller than superflares. We think they would produce bigger mass ejections. That was just speculation until recently.
There is danger from above.
To find out, the researchers looked at EK Draconis. The star is about the same size as our sun, but it's a relative youngster at 100 million years old.
"It's what our sun looked like 4.5 billion years ago," Notsu said.
The stars were observed for 32 nights in the winter and spring of 2020 using telescopes. Notsu and his colleagues were lucky to see EK Draconis erupt into a superflare on April 5. The team observed a mass ejection from the star's surface about 30 minutes later. Thefilament eruption phase was the first step in the ejection's life. It was a monster, moving at a top speed of 1 million miles per hour.
It may not bode well for life on Earth, as the team's findings suggest that the sun could also be capable of such violent extremes. It's not likely that you'll see superflares around our sun.
In the early years of the solar system, huge mass ejections may have been more common. The shape of planets like Earth and Mars could have been helped by the large mass ejections.
Notsu said that the atmosphere of Mars is very thin. We think that Mars had a thicker atmosphere in the past. Coronal mass ejections can help us understand what happened to the planet over billions of years.
The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, University of Hyogo, Kyoto University, Kobe University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, The University of Tokyo and Doshisha University are all involved in the new study.
Kosuke Namekata was able to detect an eruptive filament from a superflare on a solar-type star. www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01532-8
Nature Astronomy journal has information.
A young sun-like star may hold warnings for life on Earth.
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