Superflare
Encyclopedia
Superflares are very strong explosions observed on solar-like stars with energy production rates at levels one million times or more that of typical solar-like flares. It has been suggested that these eruptions may be produced by the interaction of the star's magnetic field with the magnetic field of a putative Jupiter-like planet.
. The energy released during such a flare is 100 times to 10 million times that of the sun's largest coronal mass ejection
s.
by 1,000 times. They may last from a few hours to a week. If the Sun were to release a superflare, it would make a winter day as warm as a summer day. The ozone layer
of the Earth might be destroyed by the intense flow of charged particles produced by such a flare, and surface ice would melt on the daylight side of moons as distant from the sun as those of Jupiter, freezing again after the flare faded away. There is no evidence of superflares ever having occurred in the Solar System
.
Superflare stars
, nine superflare stars have been found, some of them similar to our SunSun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. The energy released during such a flare is 100 times to 10 million times that of the sun's largest coronal mass ejection
Coronal mass ejection
A coronal mass ejection is a massive burst of solar wind, other light isotope plasma, and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space....
s.
Details
Superflares increase the brightness of the star by up to 20 times its normal brightness and the luminosityLuminosity
Luminosity is a measurement of brightness.-In photometry and color imaging:In photometry, luminosity is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to luminance, which is the density of luminous intensity in a given direction. The SI unit for luminance is candela per square metre.The luminosity function...
by 1,000 times. They may last from a few hours to a week. If the Sun were to release a superflare, it would make a winter day as warm as a summer day. The ozone layer
Ozone layer
The ozone layer is a layer in Earth's atmosphere which contains relatively high concentrations of ozone . This layer absorbs 97–99% of the Sun's high frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to the life forms on Earth...
of the Earth might be destroyed by the intense flow of charged particles produced by such a flare, and surface ice would melt on the daylight side of moons as distant from the sun as those of Jupiter, freezing again after the flare faded away. There is no evidence of superflares ever having occurred in the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
.