The sole source of energy in the solar system is the sun, and this giant cosmic entity plays a crucial role in harbouring life on the earth. Now, a new study has suggested that the sun is not like any other star in the universe, as it is less active than its counterparts. This finding has made many experts believe that the sun is going through a quiet phase for several millennia.
Higher activity to be expected in the future?
During the study, Timo Reinhold at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, and his colleagues compared the measurements of the sun's activity with 369 sun-like stars observed by the Kepler space telescope. It should be noted that all these stars have similar temperatures and chemical composition. But despite all these similarities, all these stars showed more activity when compared to the sun, and the solar system's star indicated that it is currently in a sleeping state.
"These stars are similar in every way we can measure to the sun, but many of them show variability up to five times higher than the sun, which was surprising. One possible conclusion would be that there is some yet-unidentified quality of these stars that we don't know that is different from the sun," said Reinhold, New Scientist reports.
The new finding has made many space experts believe that the sun could enter a phase of higher activity in the future. Even though scientists could not predict the time in which the solar peak could happen, space experts assure that dangerous solar eruption that may happen in the future will damage the electrical grids on earth.
World end to happen due to the sun's death
Solar physics professor Paul Cally strongly believes that the solar activity of the sun will increase in the future, and could cause the end of the world. As per Cally, the sun will be brighter by 10 percent now in the next 1.1 billion years.
This phenomenon will cause a drastic rise in the global temperature, and in another 3.5 billion years, the sun's brightness will be increased by 1.4 times than it is now. At this phase, the oceans of the planet will start evaporating, and will finally wipe out life from the earth's surface.
