Scientists are capturing a massive explosion of energy in the star that has never been recorded in the solar system

Posted:

Dec 10, 2021 02:28 GMT

The star EK Draconis looks a lot like what the center of our planetary system looked like billions of years ago.

In the star, a group of scientists caught a gigantic explosion of energy that has never been recorded in the solar system. Although the event occurred in 2020, the specialists published the results of their analysis on December 9 in the journal natural astronomy.

It’s the star called EK Draconis, located 111 light-years away in the constellation Draco, which is roughly the same size as the Sun, but smaller. he have Only 100 million years Compared to about 4.6 billion years from the center of our planetary system.

The team, led by specialists from the National Astronomical Observatory in Japan, observed EK Draconis over 32 nights in the winter and spring of 2020. Finally, on April 5, they were lucky enough to see an ultra-high glow followed by an ejection. Coronal mass.

Although the researchers were only able to capture the first pass of the ejecta, its speed was already close 500 kilometers per second. In total, the EK Draconis wave released a cloud of hot red plasma with a mass that was 10 times from any coronal mass ejection by the sun.

Should we be alert?

“CME could have a serious impact on Earth and human society. […] This type of large mass ejection could, in theory, also occur in our sun,” warned astrophysicist and one of the study authors Yuta Notsu, who was cited in Release from the University of Colorado Boulder (USA). Thus, if such a coronal mass ejection hit the Earth, it could Burning satellites in orbit And the removal of electrical networks from service.

Notsu explained that similar observations will enrich the available knowledge of how such stellar events have affected Earth and even Mars “for billions of years.”