The likelihood of a powerful solar flare knocking out power grids and satellites may be higher than previously thought, according to a new study published in the journal Science. It tracked 56,000 Sun-like stars and found that powerful superexplosions should be expected from our Sun every century.
Solar flares are intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation from sunspots on the Sun, releasing enormous amounts of energy for short periods of time that travel at the speed of light, affecting the Earth's upper atmosphere and ionosphere in minutes. Small solar flares cause communication interruptions for some, writes Forbes. Supereruptions are much rarer, these are high-energy outbursts known as Miyake events. The scientists analyzed photometric data from the Kepler space telescope, which searched for planets around stars between 2009 and 2018.
They looked at the brightness measurements of 56,450 solar stars and observed 2,889 superbursts of 2,527 stars, showing that stars like the Sun experience powerful superbursts once every century. The results show that if the Sun behaves like the stars in this experiment, it can produce superexplosions at a reasonable rate. It is not yet clear how the eruptions of these solar stars differ from the Sun, which may indicate that the Sun will produce more superexplosions in the future. In any case, the probability of the sun producing a superburst may be higher than previously thought. It is noted that the most famous significant solar superstorm is the "Carrington event" on September 2, 1859, when astronomer Richard Carrington observed a flash of white light from the Sun for about five minutes.
This was the most significant solar flare ever recorded - X45. By comparison, the strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle was X9.9 on October 3, 2024. A huge coronal mass ejection from the Sun caused a geomagnetic storm and aurora manifestations all over the planet, even at the equator. Despite this, to a large extent pre-industrial society had no problems, with the exception of electric shocks to telegraph operators. | BGNES
