There is a recent analysis in which astronomers find the first X-ray detection from a very close star to the Sun. It seems to be in the earliest stages of its evolution. This discovery will help scientists explore the start of our solar system, and better understand the history.
Back in 2017, a flare from a young star named HOPS 383 was detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This is the very same type of star that our Sun is.
The star is also known as a protostar, as it is in its earliest phase of the star's evolution and can be found at 1,400 light-years from Earth. It will have about half the mass of our Sun after it's matured.
A paper describing the results appeared in the journal of Astronomy & Astrophysics.
How is it going to help us?
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers have reset the timeline by detecting an X-ray flare from young stars that radiate high-energy into space. This is important as it will help address questions about the earliest days of our World as well as some of today's Solar System, NASA said.
This illustration portrays the location where the X-ray flare was observed by astronomers. HOPS 383 is considered a young "protostar" since it is in the earliest phase of stellar evolution that happens shortly after the collapse of a massive cloud of gas and dust. Once HOPS 383, which is located around 1,400 light-years from Earth, has matured, it will have a mass about half that of the Sun.
Much of the light from the infant star in HOPS 383 cannot pierce through this cocoon, but the flare (blue) X-rays are powerful enough to do that. Infrared light released by HOPS 383 is reflected (white and yellow) off the inside of the coconut. The bright X-ray flare from HOPS 383 and a material disk falling to the protostar was seen in the diagram with a portion of the cocoon cut out.
"We don't have a time machine that lets us directly observe our Sun as it was beginning its life, but the next best thing is to look at analogs like HOPS 383," said lead author Nicolas Grosso of Astrophysics Laboratory of Marseille at Aix-Marseille University in France. "From these, we can reconstruct important parts of our own Solar System's past."
In December 2017, Chandra's observations revealed the X-ray flare, which lasted for about 3 hours and 20 minutes. The flash is represented as a continuous loop in the illustration's inset frame. The rapid increase and slight decrease in the number of X-rays are similar to the behavior of X-ray flares more evolved from young stars than with HOPS 383.
No X-rays were observed during this flaring period from the protostar, indicating that HOPS 383 was at least ten times lower, on average than the flare at its height during those periods. It is also 2000 times stronger than the strongest X-ray flare detected from the Sun, a relatively low-mass middle-aged star.
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Powerful departure
There is also a departure of gas and dust, as material from the cocoon falls inward towards the disk. This "outflow" eliminates angular momentum from the system, allowing the content to fall onto the growing young protostar from the disk.
Astronomers have seen such an outflow from HOPS 383 and think powerful X-ray flare like the one Chandra observed might strip electrons from atoms at its base. It may be necessary to drive magnetic forces at the outflow.
The nuclear reactions caused by this collision may explain an unusual abundance of elements in some forms of meteorites found on Earth, assuming anything similar happened in our Sun.
No other flares from HOPS 383 were detected throughout three Chandra observations with a total exposure of just under a day. In this early phase of production for stars like our Sun, astronomers would require more extended X-ray measurements to establish how regular these flares are.
