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Superflares Found On Sun-Like Stars

Posted by samzenpus on from the get-ready-for-the-big-one dept.

astroengine writes "Scientists have found superflares more than 1 million times more powerful than flares generated by the sun occurring on sun-like stars being studied by NASA's Kepler space telescope. The finding, culled from 120 days of observations of 83,000 stars, is the first to detail how often and how energetic flares on other stars can be. The discovery, however, raises a question about how the massive outbursts, believed to be caused by complex magnetic interactions, can physically occur."

16 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Who would have thought?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Who would have thought that there's ionized hydrogen in space doing stuff that's magnetic in nature!

    -- Typical Slashdot Know-It-All Geek

    1. Re:Who would have thought?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Noooooo, can't you see it's ELECTRICAL in nature?! It's a massive cover-up by MHD supremacists! #TEACHTHECONTROVERSY

  2. Pandora's Star by Sperbels · · Score: 3

    MorningLightMountain is hard at work eradicating other species.

  3. Re:So in other words... by flyneye · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not a problem just send in your $35 to Bob and be spared this and countless other ordeals enumerated on Slashdot daily!
    http://www.subgenius.com/scatalog/membership.htm
    Eternal salvation or double your money back! And that's only the beginning of what can be done with contracted consciouslessness. Websurf the luck plane!
    See the overmen and pink fools as they are without x-ray specs. Own your own reality!
    Don't be surprised to find that solar flares are actually beneficial and life giving, not threatening, unless... of course... you didn't send in your $35.
    Then you will be fried like snot in a McDondalds deep fryer with the other pink boys.
    Just moments of your time and a small token to start living like a God!
    Tough decision, pay Bob or fry......

    --
    *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
  4. too close for comfort by slew · · Score: 2

    Considering that the Kepler mission was hoping to catch quite a few so-called "hot-jupiters" in transit and apparently none have seemingly appeared around stars that have superflares, perhaps something about the superflares are keeping hot-jupiters from migrating close to their central stars or maybe these potential hot-jupiters migrated a bit too close to these stars and all we are seeing are the superflare "burps" after the star fried (or ate) those potential "hot-jupiters"...

    1. Re:too close for comfort by John+Hasler · · Score: 2

      The "hot jupiters" they are talkiing about would be much, much closer than 1 AU. Being closer increases the probability of transiting, which is where they get the 10% figure.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:too close for comfort by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2

      Statistics doesn't work that way. Stop using it that way.
      That is like saying 1/3 that were in my year at school will get cancer, why hasn't anyone in my year got cancer yet?

      If there was a 1/3 chance for kids in your school to get cancer this , then it would be quite surprising if none of them did get it unless your year was very small. The chance of nobody getting cancer is (2/3)^N where N is the students in your class. For large N it is theoretically possible but extremely unlikely -- and thus perfectly legitimate to ask "Why didn't anyone get cancer?" Probably because the risk factor was miscalculated.

      Similarly what the GP was saying is that based on the number of events and the probability of a transit, the Expected Value for transits (if flares have no effect on the existence of a planet and thus transit) was 1. Expecting 1/365 and finding 0/365 is not unusual or improbable, and not a reason to conclude that planets can't form around stars that produce superflares.

      That is how statistics work.

      Of course randomness is random, so it's always theoretically possible to get an unusual result through chance alone. For every particle physics discovery ever made there is a 1 * 10^-N chance for some N that it was just a fluke. The goal is for N to be large enough that it would be exceedingly unlikely we are wrong and thus make it safe to infer a positive result for now.

      The correct rebuttal to the GP's point was as already given: Hot jupiters are expected to orbit at much less than 1 AU and thus the probability of a transit -- and thus expected value -- is much higher. Expecting 36 events and finding 0 is much less likely and while again could still be due to chance alone, is suggestive.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  5. Shows how little we know about the universe by pz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We deploy a new instrument and are puzzled and amazed at the results. This is incredibly wonderful, but shows how little we know about the universe. It seems to happen every time we deploy a new instrument. So much to know! So much to learn!

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    1. Re:Shows how little we know about the universe by Flere+Imsaho · · Score: 2

      So high, so low, so many things to know.

      --
      It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
    2. Re:Shows how little we know about the universe by RivenAleem · · Score: 2

      Why are you posting when there's science to do. You've experiments to run. There is research to be done.

  6. Re:So in other words... by rgbatduke · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did I mention that my name is Bob, my first Linuxoid operating system was Slackware, and I'm very definitely an ordained subgenius? Also, I used to smoke a pipe.

    So send your money to me.

    rgb

    (More seriously I'm reading The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. What a "Black Swan" an Earth-scouring solar flare would be! And one in 2012, too. Those pesky Mayans.

    One is also seriously reminded of a Larry Niven short story, but I can't remember the name, am not at home near my bookshelves, and am way too lazy to look it up. But it all starts with the full moon rising and becoming very, very bright, signalling the sequential extinction of land/surface life as the planet rotates. How would you spend your last hours?

    --
    Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
  7. $35 bucks!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I remember when it was only $3. Of course, that was back before Bob's first prophecy of X day, so no wonder it's gone up now he's got a proven track record of failure behind him.

    (heh, who do you think it was put the bit of paper in his hands the wrong way up in the first place? I'll give you a clue: if he'd held it the other way up, it would have read "kallisti"!)

  8. Re:So in other words... by Sabriel · · Score: 2

    Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven. Also the name of the volume of short stories in which this story can be found. The protagonist initially assumes the sun has gone nova. I think I lost my copy to someone who borrowed it and didn't return it, which is a shame, because they're all excellent stories (IMNSHO).

    If you want massive spoilers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconstant_Moon gives a brief synopsis of each of the stories in the collection.

  9. Only half by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You realize, of course, that we're really only seeing half of the flares. That's because we can only see the ones that happen to be facing us. It's just like with pulsars: there's undoubtedly a lot of them out there that we'll never detect simply because we're not in the path of their output.

    --
    Good, inexpensive web hosting
    1. Re:Only half by AbrasiveCat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You realize, of course, that we're really only seeing half of the flares. That's because we can only see the ones that happen to be facing us. It's just like with pulsars: there's undoubtedly a lot of them out there that we'll never detect simply because we're not in the path of their output.

      Probably less than half, maybe a 1/4 to 1/3. You aren't going to see the ones on edge. It could also depend on how often we look at each star and how fast they rotate relative to us.

  10. Re:So in other words... by Coisiche · · Score: 2

    Very long odds since they're looking at a galaxy of billions of stars to see these.

    However, it is just another candidate explanation for the Fermi Paradox. On a cosmic scale the universe is inimicable to life. Sure, you might persist long enough to evolve a bit of intelligence but sooner or later the rock that you live on is going to be physically pounded or bathed in lethal radiation.

    Such an event is unlikely, but not impossible, in any of our lifetimes but it will eventually happen and the human race will still be here because nobody sees a quarterly return on investment for trying to go somewhere else.