What we regard as "normal-sized" flares are common on the sun.
In recent years, astronomers have observed "superflares" on stars
hundreds of light years away which are hundreds to thousands of times
more energetic than normal flares.
So can a superflare ever occur on the sun in modern times?
Researchers have performed statistical analysis on data from GAIA and the
Apache Point Observatory on other stars and come to the conclusion that
a superflare on the sun is still probable.
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Originally Posted by Daniel Strain, University of Colorado at Boulder
The bottom line: age matters. Based on the team's calculations, younger stars tend to produce the most superflares. But older stars like our sun, now a respectable 4.6 billion years old, aren't off the hook.
"Young stars have superflares once every week or so," Notsu said. "For the sun, it's once every few thousand years on average."
The group published its latest results in May in The Astrophysical Journal.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Daniel Strain, University of Colorado at Boulder
Notsu can't be sure when the next big solar light show is due to hit Earth. But he said that it's a matter of when, not if. Still, that could give humans time to prepare, protecting electronics on the ground and in orbit from radiation in space.
"If a superflare occurred 1,000 years ago, it was probably no big problem. People may have seen a large aurora," Notsu said. "Now, it's a much bigger problem because of our electronics."
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Geomagnetic storms have knocked-out power grids in North America
in the past. A superflare has the potential to disrupt power grids over a
wider region of the Earth and could also result in electronics exhibiting
run-time failures or hard faults.
Article here :-
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-rare-s...ten-earth.html
Article here :-
http://astronomy.com/news/2019/06/po...hreat-to-earth