speak about a celestial temper swing : Scientists using the SCORPIO camera of the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory recently watch as a low-toned luminosity star suddenly burst to life in an extraordinarily short amount of time — becoming 15 times brighter in less than three minutes .
Star WX UMa , which is relatively close - by in the Ursa - major configuration , is about 15.6 light - age from Earth and is part of a binary system . It ’s a flare star — a unremarkably subdued low luminosity target that occassionally and unpredicably supercharge its brightness and heat in a affair of seconds . But it ’s an effect that does n’t last long . The star return back to their normal state in about 10 minutes .
Fascinatingly , the effect is so spectacular that the classification of the wiz literally vary within a few second . In this case , WX genus Uma temporarily transmute from spectral type M to B. Its temperature went from about 2,800 kelvin ( K ) to six or seven time that — somewhere between 10,000 to 33,000 K.
These flares occur when instability within the blood plasma of the wizard causes upheaval in its magnetized field .
“ A magnetic reconnection then occurs , a conversion of energy from the magnetic field into kinetic energy , so as to go back the stability of the flow , much like what happen in an galvanizing discharge , ” say a researcher when talk toSINC . This kinetic vigour transmute into thermic energy in the upper layers of the atmosphere and the star ’s corona , driving up its temperature and brightness .
register the intact study at Astrophysics : “ Spectral observations of flare stars in the neighborhood of the sun . ”
Image : Casey Reed / NASA .
AstronomyScienceSpace
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