A giant solar flare from Proxima Centauri has erupted. Proxima Centauri is a nearby red dwarf star that is 4 light years away. A light year is 6 trillion miles! This flare is a hundred times bigger than any flare that has happened with the Sun. A solar flare is basically like an eruption on a star. This flare lasted for 7 seconds, and is the biggest flare to have ever come from Proxima Centauri. Within a few seconds, the star became 14,000 times brighter!
This flare is one of the most violent ever seen in the Milky Way. Proxima Centauri is around the same age as the sun, so it is billions of years old. It is common for red dwarf stars to have exoplanets, which are basically planets of other stars. Proxima Centauri has many more flares than the sun, and releases them several times a day.
Sources:
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/
