“This observation may help us to better understand how similar events may have affected Earth and even Mars over billions of years.” Superflares erupt “This kind of big mass ejection could, theoretically, also occur on our sun,” Notsu said. The event may serve as a warning of just how dangerous the weather in space can be. In April 2020, the team observed EK Draconis ejecting a cloud of scorching-hot plasma with a mass in the quadrillions of kilograms-more than 10 times bigger than the most powerful coronal mass ejection ever recorded from a sun-like star. In the research, Namekata, Nostu and their colleagues used telescopes on the ground and in space to peer at EK Draconis, which looks like a young version of the sun. The new study, led by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s Kosuke Namekata-formerly a visiting scholar at CU Boulder-also suggests the ejections can get a lot worse.Ī coronal mass ejection seen erupting from the surface of Earth's sun in 2015.

National Science Foundation’s National Solar Observatory. “Coronal mass ejections can have a serious impact on Earth and human society,” said Notsu, a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder and the U.S. And they’re potentially bad news: If a coronal mass ejection hit Earth dead-on, it could fry satellites in orbit and shut down the power grids serving entire cities. They’re made up of clouds of extremely hot particles, or plasma that can hurtle through space at speeds of millions of miles per hour. Notsu explained the sun shoots out these sorts of eruptions on a regular basis. The study explores a stellar phenomenon called a “coronal mass ejection,” sometimes known as a solar storm. The researchers, including astrophysicist Yuta Notsu of the University of Colorado Boulder, published their results Dec. (Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)Īstronomers spying on a stellar system located dozens of lightyears from Earth have, for the first time, observed a troubling fireworks show: A star named EK Draconis ejected a massive burst of energy and charged particles in an event that was much more powerful than anything scientists have seen in our own solar system. Artist's depiction of the star EK Draconis ejecting a coronal mass ejection as two planets orbit.

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