Superflare from distant star is one of the most massive ever seen: Is it dangerous to the Solar System?

Japanese astronomers from Kyoto University recorded the superflare on one of the stars of the V1355 Orionis binary system, which is considered the strongest in the history of space observations.

As reported by Sciencealert.com, like the Sun, stars also have cycles of activity, resulting in coronal mass ejections and flares. Furthermore, in terms of their scale, they can be unimaginable events that not only shape the space weather in a system, but can easily destroy every living thing in that system.

The erruption on the star of the binary system V1355 Orionis occurred 400 light-years away and may not affect the space weather of our Solar System, but it could cause problems in its own system.

The speed of the erruption of stellar material reached 900 km/s, which is almost three times faster than the escape velocity of the star. The brightness of the flare was more than ten times the speed of the strongest flare recorded in the history of ground-based observations.

During the observations, the Japanese scientists used both their 3.8-meter Seimei Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space observatory looking for exoplanets.

Astronomers do not fully understand the physics of such phenomena, so all such events are carefully analyzed, because understanding them will help assess the likelihood of life on other worlds and, more importantly, allow to better predict these same events on the Sun.

Such flares also occur periodically on the Sun. One such flare occurred on March 11 this year, resulting in a G2 class (moderate) geomagnetic storm.

Recently, an Argentinian astrophotographer captured a rare photo of a plasma jet about 100,000 km above the surface of the Sun. It is also called a "plasma waterfall", during which a large volume of plasma is ejected due to strong magnetic fields.