A quirk of cosmic architecture apparently saves us from such fires.
Schaefer's Yale colleague Eric Rubenstein theorizes that the magnetic
field of a large planet orbiting close to a star may cause the flares.
The planet's field could become entangled with the star's own magnetic
field. When the twisted fields snap apart, the stored energy is
released in one tremendous burst, creating what Rubenstein and Schaefer
call a superflare.
The planet closest to our sun is tiny Mercury, which has a
very weak magnetic field. But if Jupiter occupied Mercury's orbit, we'd
be in trouble. Schaefer says Jupiter would then be in a position to
trigger a gargantuan flare that would turn winter into summer on Earth
and strip away the atmosphere's protective ozone layer. "Ultraviolet
radiation would bathe the entire globe, causing the food chain to die
from the bottom up," he says. "I wouldn't want to be around."
