Persistent stellar storms from our young sun may have facilitated life on Earth. (Credit: buradaki on Shutterstock)
Constant solar storms sound destructive, but stellar eruptions may have set the stage for life on our planet
In A Nutshell
- Astronomers caught a young star hurling hot material into space at over 300 miles per second, followed by a slower, cooler eruption—showing the same layered structure seen in solar storms.
- This “small” event packed half the punch of the largest solar storm ever recorded, yet such eruptions likely happened 5–10 times daily on the young Sun.
- Rather than destroying early life, these constant stellar storms may have created it by breaking apart atmospheric molecules to form amino acid building blocks and heat-trapping gases.
- Current surveys may miss most eruptions because different telescopes see different temperature components—scientists have been missing half the story.
Astronomers captured a rare, multi-wavelength view of a stellar eruption on a young Sun-like star—and it’s changing how we think about life’s origins on Earth.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based observatories, researchers watched as EK Draconis launched both superhot and cooler material into space in a two-part explosion. The star is roughly 100 million years old, making it an excellent stand-in for studying what our Sun was like in its youth.
The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, suggests our infant Sun bombarded Earth with powerful eruptions up to 10 times daily. Far from destroying the conditions for life, these storms may have created them.
A Two-Part Cosmic Explosion
The eruption unfolded like a dramatic celestial fireworks show in two acts. First came an intense flash of ultraviolet light as scorching-hot plasma rocketed outward at more than 300 miles per second. About 10 minutes later, a cooler, denser blob of material began its slower journey at only 40 miles per second. This cooler material lasted for about two hours.
Scientists regularly see this kind of layered structure when our Sun throws a tantrum. But catching it happening on a distant star is like trying to photograph individual raindrops from an airplane.
Previous studies found that EK Draconis unleashes massive “superflares” about every two days. These superflares are at least 10 times more powerful than the largest flares our Sun produces today.
Even the “Small” Ones Are Huge
Here’s where things get interesting. The eruption scientists observed wasn’t even one of the star’s superflares. By EK Draconis standards, this was a relatively minor event. Yet it still matched roughly half the strength of the 1859 Carrington flare, the largest solar storm on record.
On our modern, well-behaved Sun, a storm this powerful is extremely rare. On young EK Draconis, Carrington-class flares happen 5 to 10 times every single day.
If our infant Sun behaved the same way, Earth would have experienced major magnetic storms once or twice daily, according to NASA scientist Vladimir Airapetian. These relentless bombardments would have squeezed Earth’s protective magnetic shield. Energetic particles would then slam into the upper atmosphere and trigger chemical reactions that simply can’t happen under today’s calmer space weather.
The eruption hurled an enormous amount of material into space. The hot component alone weighed somewhere between 40 and 76 quadrillion grams (roughly 10,000 times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza). The cooler blob was comparable in size.
Violent Storms, Peaceful Beginnings?
This is where the story takes a fascinating turn toward Earth’s origins. Rather than being purely destructive, these constant stellar storms might have actually helped set the stage for life.
Airapetian and his colleagues believe that energetic particles from frequent eruptions on the young Sun could have broken apart nitrogen and carbon dioxide molecules in Earth’s early atmosphere. This breakup would create reactive fragments that are the building blocks of amino acids and other organic compounds—the stuff life is made of.
The process would also generate nitrous oxide, a powerful heat-trapping gas that may have kept early Earth warm enough for liquid water to exist on the surface.
In other words, the young Sun’s violent mood swings may not have been obstacles to life’s emergence. They may have been essential ingredients in creating the conditions that made life possible.
One Big Eruption or a Cosmic Chain Reaction?
Scientists see two possible explanations for what they observed:
Scenario 1: The hot and cool material came from different layers of a single massive eruption. Think of it like a storm cloud with different temperature zones.
Scenario 2: The initial hot eruption triggered a second, cooler eruption nearby—like dominoes falling. Astronomers call this a “sympathetic eruption.”
Either way, the discovery reveals that young stars produce far more complex and powerful eruptions than scientists previously thought.
We’ve Been Missing Half the Story
One important implication: astronomers may have been dramatically underestimating how often these eruptions occur.
Hubble captured the superhot component while ground-based telescopes caught the cooler material. Neither instrument alone would have revealed the complete picture. This means surveys watching stars through just one type of telescope might be missing a huge fraction of eruptions.
The true occurrence rate is probably even higher than the multiple-times-per-day rate scientists have already documented.
The research team included scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder, Seoul National University, and multiple Japanese institutions.
What This Means for Finding Habitable Worlds
Future observations of EK Draconis and similar young stars will help astronomers understand how often these eruptions really happen. Japan’s upcoming LAPYUTA space telescope is designed specifically to catch these events. It should make detecting stellar eruptions much more routine.
Understanding the young Sun’s behavior doesn’t just tell us about our cosmic past. It also helps us evaluate which planets around other young stars might be good candidates for harboring life. Too much stellar violence might strip away atmospheres. But the right amount might provide the chemical spark life needs to get started.
Paper Summary
Methodology
Researchers conducted coordinated observations of the young solar analogue EK Draconis over four consecutive nights from March 29 to April 1, 2024. Hubble Space Telescope’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph obtained far-ultraviolet spectra with 30-second cadence, while three ground-based telescopes simultaneously collected optical spectroscopy: the 1.8-meter Bohyunsan telescope in South Korea, the 2.0-meter Nayuta telescope, and the 3.8-meter Seimei telescope in Japan. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite provided optical photometry. Far-ultraviolet observations focused on emission lines formed at temperatures around 100,000 Kelvin, while ground-based spectrographs monitored the hydrogen-alpha line sensitive to cooler plasma around 10,000 Kelvin. Spectral analysis involved Gaussian fitting to measure Doppler velocities of both central emission and blueshifted wing components.
Results
A flare releasing approximately 2.3 × 10^32 ergs of energy occurred on March 29, 2024. During and just before the flare, far-ultraviolet emission lines showed blueshifted components with velocities of 300-550 kilometers per second, indicating warm plasma eruptions. Approximately 10 minutes after the far-ultraviolet flare peaked, the hydrogen-alpha line exhibited blueshifted absorption at 60-70 kilometers per second that persisted for at least two hours, signaling a cooler filament eruption. Plasma diagnostics indicated the warm component had an electron density around 10^9.3 to 10^11.5 per cubic centimeter with a mass of 40-76 quadrillion grams and kinetic energy of 11-49 × 10^30 ergs. Carrying 9-310 quadrillion grams with kinetic energy of 1.9-90 × 10^29 ergs, the cool filament differed in velocity and timing from the warm component, suggesting either a multi-layer structure within a single eruption or two physically connected but distinct eruptions.
Limitations
Single-event detection prevents statistical characterization of eruption properties as the study’s primary limitation. Ambiguity surrounds the exact relationship between the hot and cool plasma components due to the 10-minute gap between detections and velocity differences that seem inconsistent with simple deceleration of a single plasma structure. Poor signal-to-noise ratios or line blending affected some far-ultraviolet lines, limiting velocity measurements to the cleanest spectral features. Hydrogen-alpha observations from one telescope required correction for telluric water vapor contamination. TESS optical photometry did not detect significant white-light emission, placing the flare energy below typical superflare thresholds but making precise energy estimates dependent on far-ultraviolet continuum modeling with assumed blackbody temperatures. Optically thin emission assumptions and solar coronal abundances form the basis for plasma mass estimates, which may not perfectly apply to the stellar case.
Funding and Disclosures
Multiple sources supported this research: JSPS KAKENHI grants JP24H00248, JP24K00680, JP24K00685, and JP25K01041; the Operation Management Laboratory of NINS grant OML022403; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Sellers Exoplanet Environments Collaboration; NASA Astrophysics Theory Program grant 80NSSC24K0776; NASA TESS Cycle 6 Program 80NSSC24K0493; NASA ADAP 80NSSC21K0632; the National Research Foundation of Korea grant RS-2023-00208117; and the GSFC Internal Scientist Funding Model programme. GO Programme 17595 funded Hubble Space Telescope observations. No competing interests exist among the authors.
Publication Information
Namekata, K., France, K., Chae, J., Airapetian, V.S., Kowalski, A., Notsu, Y., Young, P.R., Honda, S., Kang, S., Kang, J., Lee, K., Maehara, H., Lee, K.-S., Tamburri, C., Ohshima, T., Takayama, M., and Shibata, K. “Discovery of multi-temperature coronal mass ejection signatures from a young solar analogue.” Nature Astronomy (October 27, 2025). doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02691-8
