Superflares From Young Red Dwarf Stars Imperil Planets In this artist's rendering, an active, young red dwarf (right) is stripping the atmosphere from an orbiting planet (left). Violent outbursts of seething gas from young red dwarf stars (as illustrated here) may make conditions uninhabitable on fledgling planets. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is observing such stars. Stellar flares from red dwarfs are particularly bright in ultraviolet wavelengths, compared with Sun-like stars. Hubble's ultraviolet sensitivity makes the telescope very valuable for observing these flares. The flares are bel
Superflares From Young Red Dwarf Stars Imperil Planets In this artist's rendering, an active, young red dwarf (right) is stripping the atmosphere from an orbiting planet (left). Violent outbursts of seething gas from young red dwarf stars (as illustrated here) may make conditions uninhabitable on fledgling planets. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is observing such stars. Stellar flares from red dwarfs are particularly bright in ultraviolet wavelengths, compared with Sun-like stars. Hubble's ultraviolet sensitivity makes the telescope very valuable for observing these flares. The flares are believed to be powered by intense magnetic fields that get tangled by the roiling motions of the stellar atmosphere. When the tangling gets too intense, the fields break and reconnect, unleashing tremendous amounts of energy. The team has found that the flares from the youngest red dwarfs they surveyed — just about 40 million years old — are 100 to 1,000 times more energetic than when the stars are older. This younger age is when terrestrial planets are forming around their stars. Approximately three-quarters of the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs. Most of the galaxy's "habitable-zone" planets — planets orbiting their stars at a distance where temperatures are moderate enough for liquid water to exist on their surface — likely orbit red dwarfs. In fact, the nearest star to our Sun, a red dwarf named Proxima Centauri, has an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone.
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