Comments on: Wow! Satellite Catches Bright Solar Flare From a Another Star

By: cc bb

cc bb — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:46:07 +0000

wow incredible !!!!! NOTTTT the world aint gonna end

By: Topcat

Topcat — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:12:57 +0000

Great picture, even thought its just a drawing or painting.

I do have a question though; it says that if our Sun ever produced a flare like this, it would destroy the Earth's atmosphere and sanitize the Earth's surface. What about any neighboring planets to this star, if any?

By: alphonso richardson

alphonso richardson — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:56:01 +0000

Wow.

By: Nirupam

Nirupam — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:14:39 +0000

The term "solar flare" is only applicable for the flares from the sun. In this cse it should be called stellar flare …

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:25:35 +0000

OK, there was a bright flare, and it would have lain waste if it had happened to the Earth, very nasty, but where is the scientific data in the article? Just how powerful was it? There are no numbers here! Numbers are our friend.

By: davidb

davidb — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:16:23 +0000

Disc of Betelgeuse (as imaged by HST) and an idea of how HUGE this star is if it sat in the middle of our solar system. Incredible!

http://www.nrm.se/images/18.1416bda210eb7cf4e7880007329/Betelgeuse+vs+solar+system+January+2007.png

By: Hapa

Hapa — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:28:17 +0000

Now that's a great wallpaper, thanks!

By: Spike

Spike — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:24:51 +0000

The way you have the magnitude is wrong or at least worded badly. At magnitude "-10" this star would be easily visible at just about all times (only the Moon and Sun are that bright from Earth)
Here is what they say in the actual NASA release "But with its feeble light output, its faint magnitude-10 glow is far below naked-eye visibility." meaning this is actually a magnitude 10 star, not -10. (the – is just a break in the sentence)

@dmedici
They don't say specifically what magnitude it reached, but it must have been magnitude 5 or 6 to be "easily observable with the naked eye" in a night sky.
That is quite a brightening for such a small/faint star.

By: greg your last name

greg your last name — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:42:56 +0000

it is obviously an artists rendering. was being sarcastic. however cool it would be to image a star in such detail and have it's resolution look like this one, i realize it would be highly impossible in our lifetimes. still, i think captions below the photos, not just as a rollover, would be a nice improvement to UT. And for the record, Nancy, the article's content is fascinating to say the least.

By: pantzov

pantzov — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:32:05 +0000

it was right here in the UT forum where it was explained to me that it is not likely for life to evolve around red dwarfs due to the small size of the habitable zone and their tendency to produce deadly flares. well, what an example!

thanks UT

p.s. i would have thought it obvious that the picture is an artist's rendition.

By: fivefourman

fivefourman — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:37:10 +0000

"It's one of our closest stellar neighbors, but normally is not visible with the naked eye, as it holds a magnitude of -10."

Shouldn't that be 10 (and not -10)?
Or was this absolute magnitude (and I'm missing something else)?

By: Nat

Nat — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:35:07 +0000

@Qev

Ya, I seem to have remembered hearing about that a while back. Thanks for the info.

By: Qev

Qev — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:27:07 +0000

@Nat

Not entirely true, astronomers have resolved nearby giant stars to disks, such as Betelgeuse and Altair.

By: dmedici

dmedici — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:12:58 +0000

Anyone know what magnitude in brightness this outburst reached?

By: Kendall

Kendall — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:06:23 +0000

Still, I've always hoped UT would start putting captions on the photos to indicate if they are artist renditions or what observatory took the photograph with what size telescope, what colors represent what wavelengths, etc.

By: owen

owen — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:31:47 +0000

truly amazing

By: Justine Ayers

Justine Ayers — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:43:43 +0000

If you mouse over the picture it gives credit and says it's a artists depiction.

By: greg your last name

greg your last name — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:15:30 +0000

Nat, no really?! Duh.

By: Nat

Nat — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:06:13 +0000

(So far as I know, all stars but the Sun are too far away for us to even resolve a disk while looking at them, much less get any sort of surface detail.)

By: Nat

Nat — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:05:30 +0000

That's not a photo. It's an artist's depiction.

By: greg your last name

greg your last name — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:48:21 +0000

wow! what an amazing photo! (perhaps a disclaimer should read below all these images on UT.com saying if they're computer generated or not).

By: Steve Sutton

Steve Sutton — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:42:23 +0000

Incredible and amazing.