Posted on 02/17/2019 7:57:53 AM PST by ETL
In November 2016, astronomers watched a young star some 1,500 light-years away from Earth belch out an explosion of plasma and radiation that was roughly 10 billion times more powerful than any flare ever seen leaving Earth's sun. This sudden stellar eruption may be the most luminous known flare ever released by a young star — and it could help scientists better understand the still-murky process of star formation.
"Observing flares around the youngest stars is new territory and it is giving us key insights into the physical conditions of these systems," Steve Mairs, an astronomer and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
Mairs and his colleagues detected the flare using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, perched atop Hawaii's dormant Mauna Kea volcano.
The flare originated from a binary star system — a solar system where two big stars orbit around one another — located in the Orion Nebula, some 1,500 light-years away, researchers reported in the new study, which was published Jan. 23 in The Astrophysical Journal.
This nebula is the closest active star-forming region to Earth and is frequently studied by astronomers interested in the births of stars and planets.
(You can actually see the nebula with the naked eye when you look for the Orion constellation; it's the middle "star" in Orion's sword, just south of his belt.)
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The green square (image on the left) shows the region of the Orion nebula where an intensely powerful solar flare took place.
On Nov. 20, 2016, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Transient Survey Team recorded no flare (top right image); six days later,
a bright burst of plasma and radiation had blasted from the same spot and was already dimming from its most peak brightness (bottom right image).
JCMT Transient Survey Team
I need to know this why?
Because you clicked on the article.
I like the pretty Hubble pics.
Why? Because astronomy is western, phallo-centric, patriarchal, classist, intellectually rigorous and therefore non-PC. This needs to be in your toolkit to be a cultured conservative, and so you can give the secret passwords at meetings.
> I need to know this why? <
Because it’s another terrible result of Climate Change. Now even distant galaxies are effected.
So quit yer complaining and go write your Congressperson. Tell him/her to embrace AOC’s Green New Deal without delay.
You can stop building Faraday Cages, now.
Instantly my thought also
John has a long nebulous. The chair is against the cluster.
Darn, I just bought a new roll of heavy duty tin foil.
Orion is about the only constellation that actually looks like its supposed portrayal, minus the head.
...and very racis! Most of the sky is black and the ass-tronomers only focus on the white parts!
I’m confused. His sword is above his head, which would be “north” to me (article says south of his belt). Below his belt is a scabbard. So where is the stellar eruption?
Fascinating.
And Brian Wilson was there to see it?
It’s ‘general chat’. No need to open it if you don’t like.
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