While the Sun is known to release massive solar flares and energetic radiations occasionally, smaller and cooler stars are usually imagined to be calmer. However, new research has identified a tiny star that shows evidence of flares that are much stronger than those produced by our Sun. The findings suggest that the habitability of planets orbiting such stars could be much less than previously thought.

Peter Williams of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and lead author on the study, said, “If we lived around a star like this one, we wouldn't have any satellite communications. In fact, it might be extremely difficult for life to evolve at all in such a stormy environment,” in a press release.

The research target was a celestial object nearly 35 light-years from the Earth – a well-known red dwarf star in the Boites constellation. Since the object is unusually cool, it lies on the line dividing stars and brown dwarfs. Stars are known to fuse hydrogen, while brown dwarfs do not. The rapid spinning of the star makes it remarkable – a full rotation completed every two hours. Our Sun, on the other hand, takes about a month to complete a spin on its axis.

Edo Berger, astronomer at the CfA and co-author on the study, said in the CfA press release, “This star is a very different beast from our Sun, magnetically speaking.”

The new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array was used to detect emissions from the star, reported at a 95 GHz frequency. This makes it the first ever detection of flare-like emissions of such high intensity from a red dwarf star. Even more surprising is the fact that these emissions are 10,000 times brighter than those produced by our Sun, in spite of the Sun being over 10 times the star’s mass.

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