This extraordinary coronal mass ejection from our sun occurred in 2012. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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Astronomers spying on a star system located tens of light years from Earth observed, for the first time, a disturbing fireworks display: a star named EK Draconis, which released a massive burst of energy and charged particles far more powerful than anything else in the world. Scientist. seen in our solar system.
The researchers, including astrophysicist Yuta Notsu of the University of Colorado Boulder, will publish their results today (December 9, 2021) in the journal. natural astronomy.
The study explores a stellar phenomenon called coronal mass ejection, sometimes known as solar storms. Notsu explains that the sun releases these types of eruptions on a regular basis — they consist of clouds of extremely hot particles, or
“CMEs can have serious impacts on Earth and human society,” said Notsu, a research associate in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder and the United States National Solar Observatory.
Image of Earth corresponding to the blowing of a fuse. Note: Earth is not very close to the Sun, this image is for measurement purposes only. Credit: NASA/Goddard . Space Flight Center
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The new study, led by Kosuke Namekata of the National Astronomical Observatory in Japan and a former visiting researcher at CU Boulder, suggests it could get worse.
In this study, Namekata, Nostu and their colleagues used telescopes on Earth and in space to view EK Draconis, which looks like a modern version of the Sun. In April 2020, the team observed EK Draconis emitting a cloud of superheated plasma with a mass estimated to be in the billions of kilograms – ten times greater than the most powerful coronal mass ejection ever recorded from a Sun-like star.
The event could serve as a warning of how dangerous space weather is.
“This type of massive mass ejection, in theory, could also occur in our Sun,” said Notsu. “These observations can help us better understand how similar events affect Earth and even
Superflare erupts
Notsu explains that coronal mass ejections often occur right after a star releases a glow, or a sudden burst of bright radiation that can extend far into space.
However, recent research suggests that on the Sun, this sequence of events may be relatively quiet, at least as far as scientists observe. In 2019, for example, Notsu and company published a study which suggests that young sun-like stars in nearby galaxies appear to be experiencing multiple superplanets — like our own solar flares but tens or even hundreds of times more intense.
Such superflares, in theory, could also occur in Earth’s sun but not often, perhaps once every few thousand years. However, this piqued the Notsu team’s curiosity: Could a superflare also emit that much coronal mass?
“Superflares are much larger than the flares we see from the sun,” said Notsu. So we suspect it will also result in much larger mass ballistics. But as of now, this is just a guess.”
danger from above
To find out, the researchers set their sights on EK Draconis. Notsu explains that the curious star is about the same size as our sun, but at only 100 million years old, it is relatively young in the cosmic sense.
“This is what our sun looked like 4.5 billion years ago,” said Notsu.
Researchers observed the star for 32 nights in winter and spring 2020 using
This may not bode well for life on Earth either: The team’s findings suggest that the Sun can also carry out such violent states. But don’t hold your breath—as with superplanets, ejections of supercoronal masses will likely be rare around the sun in a few years.
However, Notsu notes that massive mass emissions may have been more frequent in the early years of the solar system. In other words, the massive ejection of the corona could help shape planets like Earth and Mars into what they are today.
“The atmosphere of Mars is currently very thin compared to Earth’s atmosphere,” said Notsu. “In the past, we thought that the Martian atmosphere was much thicker. The coronal mass ejection could help us understand what happened to the planet over billions of years.”
Reference: December 9, 2021, natural astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038 / s41550-021-01532-8
Co-authors of the new study include researchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Hyogo University, Kyoto University, Kobe University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, University of Tokyo and Doshisha University.
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