Can the sun produce a “super flare” that will sweep the Earth
Astronomers think so after observing the huge flash of another star
by Agencies
Compared to many of its neighbors, the Sun is a star relatively quiet. But a team of researchers from the University of Warwick has just demonstrated that could change at any time. The sun, in fact, has all the potential to deliver what astronomers call a “super flare ‘. A flash the consequences, of course, would be disastrous for the Earth and its inhabitants. The work was recently published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The researchers reached this conclusion after observing disturbing the Kepler space telescope a huge blaze in a distant star and check that the “super flash” continued surprisingly very similar to solar flares we know patterns. Something certainly worrying as super flares astronomers observe occasionally in other stars are thousands of times more powerful than any recorded so far in the sun.
The star in question is a binary call KIC9655129. It lies within our galaxy, the scientists suggest that the similarities between the super flare and flare of our Sun show that the underlying physics could be the same. Which means the sun itself would be perfectly capable of producing a super flare.
A typical solar flare may have a power equivalent to one hundred million megatons (a megaton is equivalent to the explosion of a million tons of TNT). But a super solar flare would be much stronger and could easily reach billions of megatons. If the Sun do a thing, all energy and communications systems on Earth would be at serious risk.
To Chloë Pugh, the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics at the University of Warwick, which He led the research, “our solar system is filled with plasma, or ionized gas, originated in the Sun and is the result of solar wind and more violent eruptions such as solar flares. It has been noted that other stars that are very similar to the Sun sometimes produce huge flares, we know as super flares. To know for sure if the sun itself is capable of producing catastrophic super flare, we need to determine if the physical processes behind a common flare and a super flare are the same. “
A solar flare is common in a series of pulses that occur regularly. Often, these keystrokes behave like waves, with a wavelength that is closely related to several properties in the region of the sun that causes flare. The study of these waves is known as Coronal Seismology. “Sometimes he assures Pugh-, solar flares contain multiple waves that overlap each other. And we have found evidence that these multiple waves, or multiple periodicities also occur in some super-flare star, and that the properties of these waves are consistent with those that occur during flares that produce our sun. “
disastrous for Earth
For the researcher, “If the Sun were to produce a super flare, would be disastrous for life on Earth. Our GPS systems and communications could be severely damaged and could have major blackouts due to strong currents induced in power grids. Luckily, it is unlikely that the conditions for a blaze that produces super-occur in the Sun, according to our observations of solar activity. “
To reach their conclusions, the researchers used time series analysis to detect in the data collected by the Kepler space telescope, the wave patterns present in the light curve of the super flare Kic9655129.
Anne-Marie Broomhall, co-author of the study He explains that “when a flare occurs, we usually see is a rapid increase in intensity followed by a gradual decrease it. Normally, the descent phase is relatively mild, but sometimes notable jumps, we call ‘quasi-periodic pulsations’ (QPPs) occur. We use different techniques to assess the frequency and the statistical significance of these QPPs “.
The investigation revealed in Kic9655129 not one, but two significant periodicities, with less than 1% chance that these pulsations were observed by chance. “Then, we developed a model for the light curve flare describing both the descent phase as the two periodicities. The two periods were 78 and 32 minutes respectively. And their properties and their disintegration times were independent. “
To Broomhall,” the most plausible explanation for the presence of two independent periodicities is that QPPs were caused by magnetohydrodynamic oscillations (MHD) observed frequently in the flames that produced our sun. This result therefore indicates that both solar flares and super stellar flares are the same physical processes involved. That supports the hypothesis that the Sun would be able to potentially produce a super flare devastating. “
No comments:
Post a Comment