Star Explosions May Destroy Worlds: New Astronomical Findings
To astronomer for the first time succeeded in detecting a large explosion released by a bintang outside solar system. This explosion was not just an ordinary flash of light, but a giant energy blast that had the potential to destroy the atmosphere planet surrounding. These findings open a new window in understanding space weather outside the solar system and the challenges for life on other planets.
This information was reported on the CNN page last November, based on research published in scientific journals Nature.
Star Explosion Never Seen Before
This explosion is known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is the ejection of a large cloud of charged plasma and magnetic fields from the outer layers of a star. In our solar system, CMEs originate from the Sun and can trigger auroras on Earth and disrupt satellites and power grids.
However, this newly detected CME is much more extreme. The source is a red dwarf star named StKM 1-1262, which is about 130 light years from Earth. This star has half the mass of the Sun, but rotates 20 times faster and has a magnetic field about 300 times stronger. This stellar storm is traveling at a speed of about 5.3 million miles per hour (about 2,400 km per second. This speed only occurs in about one in every 2,000 solar CMEs.
Found Through Radio Signal Emissions
This explosion was not visible directly, but was detected via a radio burst called type II radio burst. This signal appears when hot gas is swept out of the star and forms a shock wave in space.
The researchers discovered the signal by analyzing old data from the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) radio telescope, a network of thousands of antennas in Europe, using a new technique called Radio Interferometric Multiplexed Spectroscopy (RIMS).
“We know the material has actually left the star’s magnetic field. That means this is indeed a CME,” said lead researcher Dr. Joe Callingham from the University of Amsterdam. (E-3)