SETI Live: Could the Sun Unleash a Superflare? - Livestream

Could our Sun produce an explosion far more powerful than anything we've witnessed in the modern era?

In April 1947, astronomers observed an enormous sunspot roughly 40 times Earth's diameter. Nearly 80 years later, researchers discovered that this giant sunspot could produce a superflare - an extraordinarily powerful burst of radiation that could dwarf the largest solar flares observed in recent decades.

By examining hundreds of solar flares recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and comparing their energies with the sizes of active regions on the Sun, researchers have uncovered new evidence that our star is capable of producing these extreme events.

Join us for SETI Live with host and heliophysicist Dr. Becca Robinson as Dr. Valeriy Vasilyev of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research discusses what historical sunspots, stellar observations, and ancient records of solar activity can tell us about the Sun's most powerful eruptions.

Could a superflare happen in our lifetime? What would such an event mean for Earth's technological infrastructure? And how much do we really know about the Sun's explosive potential?

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