Discovery of multi-temperature coronal mass ejection signatures from a young solar analogue
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the early Sun may have profoundly influenced the planetary atmospheres of early Solar System planets. Flaring young solar analogues serve as excellent proxies for probing the plasma environment of the young Sun, yet their CMEs remain poorly understood. Here we report the detection of multi-wavelength Doppler shifts of the far-ultraviolet and optical lines during a flare on the young solar analogue EK Draconis. During and before a Carrington-class (~10 32 erg) flare, warm far-ultraviolet lines (~10 5 K) exhibited blueshifted emission at 300–550 km s −1 , indicative of a warm eruption. Then, 10 min later, the Hα line showed slow (70 km s −1 ), long-lasting (≳2 h) blueshifted absorptions, indicating a cool (~10 4 K) filament eruption. This provides evidence of the multi-temperature and multi-component nature of a stellar CME. If Carrington-class flares or CMEs occurred frequently on the young Sun, they may have cumulatively impacted the early Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere.
Source: Nature Astronomy
Authors: Kosuke Namekata, Kevin France, Jongchul Chae, Vladimir S. Airapetian, Adam Kowalski, Yuta Notsu, Peter R. Young, Satoshi Honda, Soosang Kang, Juhyung Kang, Kyeore Lee, Hiroyuki Maehara, Kyoung-Sun Lee, Cole Tamburri, Tomohito Ohshima, Masaki Takayama, Kazunari Shibata
Institutions: Goddard Space Flight Center, Kyoto University, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Heliophysics Science Division, Catholic University of America, University of Colorado Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Seoul National University, National Solar Observatory, Northumbria University, University of Hyogo, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, The University of Osaka, Doshisha University
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $12,690
Funders: National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Space Telescope Science Institute, National Research Foundation, Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, National Research Foundation of Korea, Goddard Space Flight Center, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Planetary Science Division
Awards: G3017093490, Unveiling the Radiative Mechanisms of Stellar Flares via Ultraviolet Space Observations, Unveiling the nature of stellar mass ejections associated with superflares with time-resolved H-alpha spectroscopy, G7557963192, Comparative Study of Solar and Stellar Magnetic Activity for Understanding of Space Weather of Exoplanets, Unified Understanding of Stellar Superflares from Onset to Consequences by Observation
OpenAlex ID: W7101393834