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Posted on 04/25/2021 4:52:07 PM PDT by ETL
Scientists have spotted one of the largest stellar flares ever recorded in our galaxy. The jets of plasma shot outward from the sun's nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. The flare, which was around 100 times more powerful than any experienced in our solar system, could change the way scientists think about solar radiation and alien life.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf — the smallest, dimmest and most common type of main sequence stars in the galaxy — located approximately 4.25 light-years from Earth. Its mass is only one-eighth of the sun's, and it is orbited by two exoplanets. One of these planets, Proxima Centauri b, is considered to be Earth-like and lies within the star's habitable zone — the distance from a star that could support the development of life, according to the researchers.
In a new study, researchers used nine ground and orbital telescopes — including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — to closely monitor Proxima Centauri for a total of 40 hours over several months in 2019. On May 1, 2019, the team captured the mega flare, which shone for just 7 seconds and was mainly visible in the ultraviolet spectrum.
"The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds," lead author Meredith MacGregor, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement.
The power of this flare and type of radiation it emitted could change what we know about red dwarfs and the chances of life developing on the planets that orbit them.
Stellar flares are the result of a star's strong magnetic fields. These fields — which are created by large amounts of electrically charged gas — can get twisted together and suddenly snap back into place to release an enormous amount of energy in the form of radiation, kind of like firing an elastic band at someone with your fingers.
The flare on Proxima Centauri was extremely powerful compared with those emitted by the sun. Unlike flares from the sun, this one also emitted different kinds of radiation. In particular, it produced a huge surge of ultraviolet light and radio waves — known as "millimeter radiation."
"In the past, we didn't know that stars could flare in the millimeter range, so this is the first time we have gone looking for millimeter flares," MacGregor said in the statement.
This finding was possible only because the team monitored the star using such a wide variety of telescopes, each focused on a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
"It's the first time we've ever had this kind of multiwavelength coverage of a stellar flare," MacGregor said in the statement. "Usually, you're lucky if you can get two instruments."
The new findings suggest that stellar flares given off by red dwarfs are much more violent than previously expected and could reduce the likelihood of alien life developing around them.
The type and amount of radiation given off by Proxima Centauri could make it very hard for life to survive on its orbiting exoplanets, which likely have no real atmosphere due to the powerful flares, according to the researchers. But it's not impossible for alien life to exist there.
"If there was life on the planet nearest to Proxima Centauri, it would have to look very different than anything on Earth," MacGregor said in the statement. "A human being on this planet would have a bad time."
Other red dwarfs likely give off equally powerful flares, thus decreasing the chances that red dwarf-hosted planets could support life. They also flare "much more frequently" than the sun, further reducing the chances of finding life in that star system, according to the researchers.
"Proxima Centauri's planets are getting hit by something like this not once in a century, but at least once a day, if not several times a day," MacGregor said in the statement.
The researchers now hope to use the wide variety of telescopes to focus on other stellar flares across our galaxy.
"There will probably be even more weird types of flares that demonstrate different types of physics that we haven't thought about before," MacGregor said in the statement.
The study was published online April 21 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The Robinson family consists of Professor John Robinson, his wife Maureen, and their three children: Judy; Penny; and Will. The family is accompanied by U.S. Space Corps Major Donald West.
The Robinsons and Major West are to be cryogenically frozen for the voyage, and they are set to be unfrozen when the spacecraft approaches its destination.
Dr. Zachary Smith, Alpha Control’s doctor, is revealed to be a saboteur working on behalf of an unnamed nation. ...”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space
If the solar flares wipe out the Na’vi so we can exploit resources, I’m all for it.
lol
The first episode had them in a space tank shooting a laser at a one eyed space gorilla.
We thought it was going to be the best tv show ever!
Then.....talking carrots.
Talking vegetables....it was like the Democrat Convention.
The Wild, Wild West.....Star Trek.....Rat Patrol....
Now there were some tv shows.
If they made Lost In Space today, we’d have to watch Dr Smith making out with the robot.
If they had taught astronomy with illustrations like that in the 1950s, I would have had a much deeper understanding of the universe around me at a much younger age.
Even when Star Wars came out in the 1970s, I was still fundamentally baffled about what the universe looked like and where planet Earth was relative to the galaxy far, far away.
I actually visited the great Planetarium in Chicago several times in my youth, but it took decades for me to intellectually understand that the universe was expanding and almost everything in it is moving away from Earth.
Thank God they never made us watch.
If they made Lost In Space today, we’d have to watch Dr Smith making out with the robot.Ummm...
Bad neighborhood. Redline it.
There WAS alien life there...
“He is accompanied by his lucky chicken, Debbie.”
“What number should we pick on the roulette wheel, Debbie? D? The number you pick is D? I think your luck is up, Debbie. Chicken dinner tonight everyone.”
I just sent my Centauri girlfriend $10,000 so she could come to me. And now she’s not responding. I hope she’s okay.
Dont stop to ask directions. Head on over to the gas station at Barnard’s star instead.
There are white dwarfs, red dwarfs, and brown dwarfs. Why no black dwarfs? Is the universe racist?
If the star systems have one large star and one or more of these small red dwarfs then the planets in those systems will be regularly blasted with radiation.
I know there are numerous SF books and movies that take place in binary star systems, but those now appear to be entirely unscientific and pure fantasy.
Proxima Centauri has been known to be a flare star for a long time. It’s a red dwarf— most of them are flare stars. This is news?
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