New Findings On The Young Sun

Xin is the first author, and the work grows out of his dissertation research with Philipp. In a previous study that included former graduate student Levke Kööp, the team found a record of an active young Sun in the first minerals that formed in the Solar System, but they didn’t know how long it took for this record to form. The new research specifically addresses this unknown exposure time. The scientists combined two state-of-the art physical models to find out how long these minerals were exposure to solar energetic particles, which in turn enabled them to estimate the Sun’s activity. The results indicate that the Sun was even more active in its youth that what scientists previously thought—“up to two orders of magnitude more active,” Philipp notes, “an exciting result!” This activity is consistent with what is observed in the most active young solar-like stars in our galaxy. This work was funded through a NASA Emerging Worlds Grant and a NASA FINESST (Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology) grant.