Astronomers detect largest flare ever, on Proxima Centauri

In May 2019 astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected the largest flare ever seen from any star, including our Sun, on the nearest star, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.

The detection was 100 times stronger than the Sun’s typical flares.

In May 2019, Proxima Centauri ejected a violent flare that lasted just seven seconds, but generated a surge in both ultraviolet and millimeter wavelengths. The flare was characterized by a strong, impulsive spike never before seen at these wavelengths. The event was recorded by five of the nine telescopes involved in the study, including the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in ultraviolet, and ALMA in millimeter wavelengths. “The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds,” said MacGregor, adding that similar behavior was captured in millimeter wavelengths by ALMA at the same time.

Red dwarfs are known to issue very powerful flares, a high solar activity that would likely make life as we know it impossible on any Earth-sized planet in its habitable zone, since the star’s small size and dimness requires that zone to be so close to the star. This powerful flare only cements this reality. The exoplanets that have been found circling Proxima Century will therefore not be great places for life, though building the first interplanetary colony there might make sense.

The twelve best solar events in 2012

An evening pause: Below is a compilation of the twelve most spectacular solar flares of 2012, in chronological order. A detailed explanation of each can be found here.

Though the Sun continues to go through the weakest sunspot maximums in more than a hundred years, we now have some very sophisticated instruments in space that are able to observe whatever happens. And the Sun is still a raging inferno of billions of hydrogen bombs, all going off at once and continuously. Even during a weak minimum it still is more powerful than we can imagine. Consider: The Earth would be nothing mores than a small dot in each of these flares.