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The Sun is displaying unusual behavior, the researchers say: It appears to be very calm compared to its galactic companions. A new study used data collected by the Kepler Space Telescope to make a comparison between the brightness of the Sun and other similar stars in the Universe.
According to research, the Sun appears to be less active than all the other hundreds of similar stars, based on changes in brightness. Compared to 369 solar-like stars, astronomers found that they generally had a range five times greater than the Sun in the past 140 years. Still, the research team also analyzed more than 2,500 Sun-like stars with unknown orbit periods, showing that their brightness changed much less.
“We were very surprised that most Sun-like stars are much more active than the Sun.” said Dr. Alexander Shapiro of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS).
Puzzling behavior without explanation
The researchers reduced the first group of comparable objects from the large collection of measurement data recorded by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, choosing stars with similar surface temperatures, ages, and orbits.
The team chose to analyze stars that rotate once around their own axis for a period of 20 to 30 days, although they do not decide the orbit period for all the stars. Therefore, the researchers had to take into account other elements, such as the reappearance of inflections in the star’s light curve.
The new research allowed scientists to better understand the normality of the Sun’s behavior, but it remains unclear why it is not unusual.
“It is conceivable that the Sun has gone through a quiet phase for thousands of years and that we therefore have a distorted image of our star.” explained Dr. Timo Reinhold, first author of the new study, which was published in the journal Science.
The team of researchers points out that it is feasible that the Sun may have greater variability over long periods of time, or that it varies from similar stars in ways they have not yet understood.
Known for her passion for writing, Paula contributes to the Science and Health niches here at Dual Dove.
