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Astronomers have detected a bright, long-duration optical flare accompanied by intense radio bursts from Proxima Centauri, the Sun’s nearest stellar neighbor. Their results are an important step to using radio signals from distant stars to effectively produce space weather reports.
An artist’s impression of a powerful flare from Proxima Centauri ejecting material onto a nearby planet. Image credit: Mark Myers / OzGrav.
Proxima Centauri, the smallest member of the Alpha Centauri system, is an M5.5-type star located 4.244 light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus.
The star has a measured radius of 14% the radius of the Sun, a mass of about 12% solar, and an effective temperature of only around 3,050 K (2,777 degrees Celsius, or 5,031 degrees Fahrenheit).
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UWA telescope captures severe weather events on closest star to Earth
The University of Western Australia’s Zadko telescope has captured severe weather events on the closest star to Earth – Proxima Centauri, a unique red dwarf star 4.2 light years away.
The research into weather patterns on Proxima Centauri, was coordinated by a global team of scientists, led by University of Sydney scientist Andrew Zic, and involved scientists from UWA, CSIRO, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Colorado and Curtin University.
CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope in Western Australia and a suite of other instruments were also used for the research.