On April 23, NASAs Swift satellite detected the strongest, hottest, and longest-lasting sequence of stellar flares ever seen from a nearby red dwarf star. The initial blast from this record- setting series of explosions was as much as 10,000 times more powerful than the largest solar flare ever recorded. We used to think major flaring episodes from red dwarfs lasted no more than a day, but Swift detected at least seven powerful eruptions over a period of about two weeks, said Stephen Drake, an astrophysicist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who gave a presentation on the superflare at the August meeting of the American Astronomical Societys High Energy Astrophysics Division. This was a very complex event. At its peak, the flare reached temperatures of 360 million degrees Fahrenheit (200 million Celsius), more than 12 times hotter than the center of the sun.Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center to science daily . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.Image illustrate :DG CVn, a binary consisting of two red dwarf stars shown here in an artists rendering, unleashed a series of powerful flares seen by NASAs Swift. At its peak, the initial flare was brighter in X-rays than the combined light from both stars at all wavelengths under typical conditions.Image credit :Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center/ S. Wiessinger .Link :- sciencedaily/releases/2014/09/140930171548.htm
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 17:56:08 +0000