Sun’s Flares May Have Pushed Planets to Safety
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Solar flares emitted by the sun in its youth may have helped newly developed planets survive by pushing them away from the sun’s powerful gravity well, researchers said Wednesday.
Looking through the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which NASA launched into orbit in 1999, the astronomers focused on a cluster of young stars in the Orion Nebula, 1,500 light-years from Earth.
Studying 30 sun-like stars over two weeks, they found the young stars erupted in flares more powerful than those produced by the sun. Energy from the flares could prevent developing planets from falling into the newborn star, they said.
