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demure  ·  2178 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: An Ultra-Powerful Flare Erupted From Our Nearest Neighbor Star

https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.02001 for those interested in reading the preprint.

    We use these results and the Evryscope flare rates to model the photochemical effects of NOx atmospheric species generated by particle events from this extreme stellar activity, and show that the repeated flaring is sufficient to reduce the ozone of an Earth-like atmosphere by 90% within five years. We estimate complete depletion occurs within several hundred kyr. The UV light produced by the Evryscope superflare therefore reached the surface with ~100X the intensity required to kill simple UV-hardy microorganisms, suggesting that life would struggle to survive in the areas of Proxima b exposed to these flares.