Gigantic solar storms: A super flare threatens every 100 years!

Gigantic solar storms: A super flare threatens every 100 years!

astronomers: Our sun could cause huge outbreaks of radiation, so -called super flares, to be much more likely to be assumed than before. Recent research based on an international study shows that such catastrophic events occur on average every 100 years in sun -like stars. This assessment, which is supported by evaluating the measurement data of over 56,000 stars of the Kepler NASA world space telescope, is a real wake-up call for the scientists. Dr. Valeriy Vasilyev from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) emphasizes that the frequency of these massive radiation outbreaks was a surprise, since earlier assumptions suspected intervals from a thousand to ten years old. As the Max-Planck-Institut , superflares can released over a trillion hydrogen bombs and have dramatic effects on earth.

The dangers of superflares

A superflare could, for example, damage satellites in space and have modern communication under control. The last important eruption, the so-called Carrington event from 1859, caused comparable damage in Northern Europe and North America than the telegraph network collapsed. At that time, this solar storm only released a hundredth of the energy that a super flare can produce. The researchers from countries such as Austria, Finland, Japan and the USA use the behavior of thousands of similar stars to risk assessment. In order to support these estimates, a variety of brightness fluctuations were analyzed over several years, with the discovery of 2,889 superflares on 2,527 of the observed stars.

The newly discovered risk of superflares underlines the need to develop systems for predicting strong solar storms faster. From 2031, the ESA space probe Vigil will be able to recognize potentially dangerous space weather phenomena earlier. This unknown threat shows how important it is to prepare for the natural powers of our solar system and continue to do research in order to make more precise predictions. In contrast, researchers are also looking for past superflares in geological archives, such as Baumringen or Glacier ice cream, to understand how often the earth was affected by such catastrophic events in the past, such as the Merkur reported.