Cosmic Blast
A recent study on massive solar flares could reveal new information about the early days of the solar system, Cosmos Magazine reported.
Last year, astronomers began observing EK Draconis, a star located dozens of light-years from Earth, which makes it relatively close in distance.
EK Draconis is younger than the sun – about 100 million years old, compared to our star’s 4.6 billion years. The team explained that they monitored the young star to determine whether it was more prone to releasing massive bursts of energy and charged particles, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME).
To their astonishment, researchers saw that EK Draconis was capable of blasting a monster-sized CME that could travel at nearly one million miles per hour. They described EK Draconis’ superflare as 10 times larger than the most powerful ejection ever recorded from an older star, such as our sun.
Co-author Yuta Notsu noted that CMEs can be particularly dangerous if they hit Earth because they would completely fry all electrical systems, causing blackouts and disruptions.
He warned that a mass ejection as seen in EK Draconis “could, theoretically, also occur on our sun,” but added that our star’s advanced age makes an apocalyptic CME less likely.
Even so, Notsu and his colleagues suggested that the CME study could explain how the celestial events helped shape the early solar system and planets such as Earth and Mars.
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