The Mouse That Roared

Credit: Casey Reed/NASA, Posted on: Wednesday, 21 May 2008, 07:22 CDT Download full size image

NASA’s Swift satellite picked up the brightest flare ever seen from a normal star other than our Sun. The flare, an explosive release of energy from a star, packed the power of thousands of solar flares. It would have been visible to the naked eye if the star had been easily observable in the night sky at the time.

An artist depicts the incredibly powerful flare that erupted from the red dwarf star EV Lacertae.

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