May 21, 2008

Powerful Flare of a tiny Star


On April 25, 2008, NASA's Swift satellite captured a record-setting flare from a little star known as EV Lacertae. Flares are powerful explosions, that contains millions of times more energy than atomic bombs. This flare was thousands of times more powerful than the greatest observed solar flare. But, as EV Lacertae is much farther from Earth than the sun, the flare did not appear as bright as a solar flare.

How this tiny star produces sucha powerful flare? The astronemrs has the answer. EV Lacertae is much younger than sun, and is still spinning rapidly. The fast spin, together with its churning interior, whips up gases to produce a magnetic field that is much more powerful than the sun's magnetic field. Source: NASA

0 comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...