Superflares Erupt From Sun-Like Stars Roughly Every 100 Years, a New Study Finds. Is Our Sun Overdue for a Massive Blast?

Our solar system could be subject to a violent “superflare” explosion from our sun sooner rather than later, researchers warn, based on a new analysis of behavior from similar stars.

Stars, including our sun, regularly emit solar flares, or strong bursts of electromagnetic radiation. Superflares, however, are much more powerful than typical solar flares, emitting up to 10,000 times more radiation. And across the cosmos, these events might occur much more frequently than astronomers previously thought, according to a paper published in Science last week.

The new results indicate that stars resembling our sun experience superflares approximately once every century—and if that’s true, it seems our sun may be overdue for such an explosion. As solar activity is already known to cause damage to Earth’s satellite and telecommunication systems, the discovery came as a shock to the team.

“This is 40 to 50 times more frequent than previously thought,” Valeriy Vasilyev, a scientist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) and a co-author of the paper, tells Space.com’s Robert Lea. “Everything about this discovery was surprising.”

What a blast! #Sun-like stars produce a #superflare on average about once every century per star, a research team led by #MPSGoettingen shows in today’s issue of @sciencemagazine. More here: https://t.co/GsigkmZWnA @UniGraz @UniOulu @prcnaoj_en @CUBoulder @unipariscite pic.twitter.com/31n8y6aczT

— Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (@MPSGoettingen) December 13, 2024

Because superflares are relatively rare, Vasilyev and his team pulled data from 56,450 stars that share many characteristics with our sun. The data, previously collected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope between 2009 and 2013, gave them access to “evidence of 220,000 years of stellar activity,” explains study co-author Alexander Shapiro, an astrophysicist at Austria’s University of Graz, in a statement.

From the data, they identified 2,889 occurrences of superflares on 2,527 stars, which led them to conclude that one sun-like star produces about one superflare every 100 years or so. Generally, stars of the same size and temperature share the same evolutionary life cycles, writes Korey Haynes for Astronomy magazine. As such, the aggregate behavior of these stars might serve as a predictor for how our sun will act.

This is why astronomers are paying close attention to this new discovery. In particular, they hope that by better understanding when such events may occur, we can better prepare for the damage that could follow. For instance, the Carrington Event of 1859, the strongest solar storm on record, ravaged telegraph networks across the globe. But the energy released during that flare is only one-hundredth of the enery thought to be associated with a superflare, the researchers say.

Still, scientists point to a few reasons why superflares might not be a huge cause for alarm. On other stars, these powerful blasts tend to happen near the poles, Space.com reports, so such flares from our sun might miss the Earth entirely. In addition, the examined stars might not be perfect analogs for our sun, some scientists say—and 30 percent of the stars seen emitting superflares in the new study are found in pairs known as binary systems, notes Live Science’s Ben Turner. Perhaps the tidal interactions between those stars, which would not apply to our sun, are triggering some of their flares.

Ultimately, we don’t know for certain that our sun is capable of expelling a superflare, Vasilyev tells the New York Times’ Katrina Miller. But “it’s nice to be prepared,” he adds.

Solar flares are also associated with coronal mass ejections, or clouds of plasma and magnetic fields launched from the sun that rile up geomagnetic storms on Earth. “A geomagnetic storm takes place when Earth’s protective magnetic shield is pushed back or eroded by the solar wind,” Martin Connors, an astronomer at Athabasca University in Canada who was not involved with the study, tells Newsweek’s Jess Thomson. Such storms would supercharge the northern and southern lights and potentially damage power grids and satellites, he says.

Coronal mass ejections leave a geological record on Earth—an elevated level of a radioactive carbon isotope that appears in tree rings and ice cores. By looking for these signatures, scientists have identified five extreme solar storms from our sun, with the most damaging dating to 775 C.E., per the statement. But it remains unclear whether such events came from several flares rather than a single powerful one—and Earth’s records don’t reveal whther the sun has launched superflares that didn’t collide with our planet.

Regardless, scientists involved in the study highlight the need for caution. Natalie Krivova, an astronomer at MPS, says in the statement that the “new data are a stark reminder that even the most extreme solar events are part of the sun’s natural repertoire.”

Keeping this in mind, the team’s next step is to redirect their research to confirm how superflares could potentially affect Earth.

“There are several directions we are pursuing,” Vasilyev says to Space.com. “For instance, we are investigating the impact of such events on the Earth’s atmosphere and technological systems, understanding the connection between superflares and extreme solar particle events and determining the conditions necessary to produce such superflares.”

Gayoung Lee | | READ MORE

Gayoung Lee is a science journalist from South Korea, now based in New York. Her main interest lies in exploring the unlikely connections between science and everyday life.