“Coronal mass ejections can have a serious impact on Earth and human society,” says co-author Dr. Yuta Notsu in a draft of the research.
And the research team says it could happen here. Since they estimate that our Sun releases CME’s towards the Earth every 100 years or so. Experts expect a powerful solar storm in this solar system around 2200, at the end of the century.
Scientists study EK Draconis, a younger sun
EK Draconis is described as a “curious star” in the study. It is approximately the same size as our Sun. But it is much younger, probably about 100-million-years-old.
“It’s what our sun looked like 4.5 billion years ago,” Dr. Notsu reports. And he says we need to continue to study “space weather” so we understand the dangers.
The study authors observed EK Draconis for 32 nights in winter and spring last year. They also did scanning with both NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and Japan’s SEIMEI telescopes.
They got lucky on April 5, 2020, when the star erupted into a massive superflare. This was followed, 30 minutes later, by the release of a CME which flew out from the star’s surface.
