This is sooo COOL!!!

http://www.earthchangesmedia.com/images/neighboring_sun_solar_flare.jpg
(CHECK OUT THE PHOTO OF FLARE!!!)

Do you suppose, this is the reason why, we are getting bombarded with LIGHTS?

Neighboring Sun Unleashes Monster Solar Flare

By Mitch Battros - Earth Changes Media
May 19, 2008 - 11:28:04 AM

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Could this be the missing link as to what drives the Sun's cycles and unusual solar activity? As outlined in 'Solar Rain - The Earth Changes Have Begun', we know what drives the Earth's weather and climate cycles -- The Sun. But what drives the Sun? On April 25, NASA's Swift satellite picked up the brightest flare ever seen from a normal star other than our Sun.

Solar flares, which is an explosion of charged particles, can be devastating to satellites, power grids, and humans and animals. The solar flare released on this day had the power of thousands of solar flares we have witnessed from our Sun. It was so powerful; it would have been visible to the' naked eye' if the star had been easily observable in the night sky at the time.

IMAGE: http://www.earthchangesmedia.com/images/neighboring_sun_solar_flare.jpg

The sun-star, is known as EV Lacertae. It is a red dwarf, which is the most common type of star in the universe. It shines with only one percent of the Sun's light, and contains only a third of the Sun's mass. At a distance of only 16 light-years, EV Lacertae is one of our closest stellar neighbors.

The flare was first seen by the Russian-built Konus instrument on NASA's Wind satellite in the early morning hours of April 25. Swift's X-ray Telescope caught the flare less than two minutes later, and quickly slewed to point toward EV Lacertae. When Swift tried to observe the star with its Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, the flare was so bright that the instrument shut itself down for safety reasons. The star remained bright in X-rays for 8 hours before settling back to normal.

Since EV Lacertae is 15 times younger than our Sun, it gives us a window into our solar system's early history. Younger stars rotate faster and generate more powerful flares, so in its first billion years the Sun must have let loose millions of energetic flares that would have profoundly affected Earth and the other planets.

Lacertae rotates once every four days, which is much faster than the Sun, which rotates once every four weeks. EV Lacertae's fast rotation generates strong localized magnetic fields, making it more than 100 times as magnetically powerful as the Sun's field. The energy stored in its magnetic field powers these giant flares.

The flare's incredible brightness enabled Swift to make detailed measurements. "This gives us a golden opportunity to study a stellar flare on a second-by-second basis to see how it evolved," says Stephen Drake of NASA Goddard.

Flares release energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, but the extremely high gas temperatures produced by flares can only be studied with high-energy telescopes like those on Swift. Swift's wide field and rapid re-pointing capabilities, designed to study gamma-ray bursts, make it ideal for studying stellar flares. Most other X-ray observatories have studied this star and others like it, but they have to be extremely lucky to catch and study powerful flares due to their much smaller fields of view.

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