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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A team of astronomers led by Carnegie's Meredith MacGregor and Alycia Weinberger detected a massive stellar flare -- an energetic explosion of radiation -- from the closest star to our own Sun, Proxima Centauri, which occurred last March. This finding, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, raises questions about the habitability of our Solar System's nearest exoplanetary neighbor, Proxima b, which orbits Proxima Centauri.
MacGregor, Weinberger and their colleagues -- the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics' David Wilner and Adam Kowalski and Steven Cranmer of the University of Colorado Boulder -- discovered the enormous flare when they reanalyzed observations taken last year by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, a radio telescope made up of 66 antennae.
At peak luminosity it was 10 times brighter than our Sun's largest flares when observed at similar wavelengths. Stellar flares have not been well studied at the wavelengths detected by ALMA, especially around stars of Proxima Centauri's type, called M dwarfs, which are the most common in our galaxy.
"March 24, 2017 was no ordinary day for Proxima Cen," said lead author MacGregor.
The flare increased Proxima Centauri's brightness by 1,000 times over 10 seconds. This was preceded by a smaller flare; taken together, the whole event lasted fewer than two minutes of the 10 hours that ALMA observed the star between January and March of last year.
[...] "It's likely that Proxima b was blasted by high energy radiation during this flare," MacGregor explained, adding that it was already known that Proxima Centauri experienced regular, although smaller, x-ray flares. "Over the billions of years since Proxima b formed, flares like this one could have evaporated any atmosphere or ocean and sterilized the surface, suggesting that habitability may involve more than just being the right distance from the host star to have liquid water."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:51AM (3 children)
Perhaps so. But normally one would say that the solar flares were detected/observed/seen/fondled/fellated/whatever at TAI. What TFS says is:
It may well have been an extraordinary day (it was definitely my ex-gf's birthday, too) for Proxima Centauri, but we won't know anything about that for more than four years.
I was a bit taken aback myself. Not because I was confused about what the author meant, but because what she is quoted as saying is imprecise.
If nothing else, the author certainly knows better. Despite the fact that the quote was almost certainly intended to make the science seem more immediate and accessible to the general public, she should strive for precision when reporting scientific observations IMHO.
Unless, of course, she believes that events do not occur until they are observed. One would hope not.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @01:09PM (2 children)
Your ex-girlfriend and Mac OS X share a birthday.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 28 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)
Interesting. She's an Apple fangirl, so she'll be happy to hear that. Thanks.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:18PM
The definition of "ex" certainly isn't precise concerning the level of communication. If it was a nasty breakup with a permanent icy silence that will never thaw, then you can only surmise that the birthday correspondence would please her. If you're still friends, then you probably can get her answer on this vitally important matter.