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Like all life on Earth, we owe a lot to the sun. Without him, we would not be here, but he also has the power to make life difficult for us, if it starts to take action. Solar flares – explosions of energy that are often associated with mass ejections that project charged particles into space – are one of the things we need to watch out for.
Scientists have a relatively solid understanding of solar flares and the ones we saw from our own star are rather lenient. But a new research paper warns that a massive "super rocket" might be inevitable and that if it hit Earth, we could have serious problems.
In the new research paper, scientists using data from the Kepler Space Telescope studied stars such as our own Sun to determine the frequency of superflare events.
Very young stars tend to have more hostile personalities, and super-angles are incredibly common in systems with stars as mature as our sun. Astronomers have assumed that this means that stars like the Sun were either out of their super-flash phase or that such events were so rare that it was not worth worrying about.
"When our sun was young, it was very active because it was spinning very fast and probably produced more powerful splinters," Yuta Notsu, the main author of the document, said in a statement. "But we did not know if such big outbreaks were occurring on the modern sun with a very low frequency."
The new data shows that this is not entirely true and that, although they are less common in mature stars, they are more common than previously thought.
"Our study shows that super events are rare events," says Notsu. "But it is possible that we can live such an event in the next 100 years."
Exactly what could happen if an incredibly powerful solar flare hits the Earth is hard to predict. Solar explosions already have the habit of playing with the electronics and communication networks, suggesting that our technological infrastructure would suffer greatly from a larger event. Unfortunately, we can not do more than hope that if a super rocket occurs, the Earth is not on its way.
Image Source: NASA Goddard
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