Category Archives: Singularity

Singularity is an open source container platform designed to be simple, fast,and secure. Singularity is optimized for compute focused enterprise and HPCworkloads, allowing untrusted users to run untrusted containers in a trustedway.

Check out talks about Singularity and some usecases of Singularity on our website.

To install Singularity from source, see the installationinstructions. For other installation options, see ourguide.

System administrators can learn how to configure Singularity, and get anoverview of its architecture and security features in the administratorguide.

For users, see the userguide for details on how to useand build Singularity containers.

Community contributions are always greatly appreciated. To start developingSingularity, check out the guidelines for contributing.

We also welcome contributions to our userguide and adminguide.

To get help with Singularity, check out the CommunityPortal.

For additional support, contact us to receivemore information.

We also have a Zenodo citation:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1310023

This is an 'all versions' DOI. Follow the link to Zenodo to obtain a DOI specificto a particular version of Singularity.

Unless otherwise noted, this project is licensed under a 3-clause BSD licensefound in the license file.

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GitHub - hpcng/singularity: Singularity: Application ...

BTS is one of the most popular bands. They have a loyal base of fans known as ARMY. Now, on its third anniversary, the ARMY has made Vs solo track Singularity top the World Digital Song Sales chart. The song was a part of BTS 2018 album, Love Yourself: Tear. Also Read - Throwback to the time when BTS member Jungkook transformed into a SUPERHERO and saved a person's life

With this, V is now also the only K-Pop artist to achieve two No. 1 solo songs on the chart. His song Inner Child was the chart-topper in March. Also Read - BTS' J-Hope APOLOGISES to renowned TV host Conan O'Brien after calling him 'curtain' on the Run BTS episode 140

In a past Billboard interview with BTS's western songwriters, Singularity composer Charlie J. Perry stated that he was blown away on how the song had turned out. He said that the song got so much love and praise because of V's soulful voice. Perry helped in creating the track which was written by BTS leader RM. Also Read - BTS: Can you guess who among RM, V, Jin, Jungkook, Jimin, J-Hope and Suga has the most lines in their chartbuster song, Dynamite?

Perry had said, "Like [V] really, really connected with it. It was such a beautiful thing because we haven't even actually met. He added that to send something across the world and for somebody to mirror that with such passion and emotion was such an incredible experience itself. He definitely has the character that this song seemed to gel so well with," he said.

Talking about V, did you know that he wanted to be a saxophonist? Yes, he has a deep attachment to the instrument as that's the only instrument he knows how to play well.

There was a time when he was almost about to quit and his father was supportive of his decision. But eventually, V got hold of himself. Recalling the incident, V had said, Being a trainee was so hard that I called him crying. When I told him I wanted to quit, he told me, If its too hard, you can quit. There are lots of other jobs. Lets look for one together. I had nothing to say to that. I felt embarrassed that I said that in the first place. As time passed, those words touched me.

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BTS: ARMY makes Vs Singularity top Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart on its third anniversary; V crea - Bollywood Life

BTS continues to make Billboard history!

Three years after its release, Vs solo track Singularitya B-side from BTSs 2018 album Love Yourself: Tearreentered Billboards World Digital Song Sales chart at No. 1 for the week ending on May 8, making it the groups 28th song to top the chart.

BTS is now officially the first artist ever to top Billboards World Digital Song Sales chart with 28 different songs, breaking their own record for the most No. 1s achieved on the chart by any artist in history.

Additionally, Singularity is Vs second solo track to reach No. 1 on the chart, following Inner Child, which topped the chart earlier this year.

BTS also made history on Billboards World Albums chart this week, where they became the first artist ever to sweep the top four spots on the chart simultaneously.

Congratulations to BTS!

BTS is currently gearing up to make their highly-anticipated return with the new English-language single Butter. Check out their latest teasers for the song here!

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BTS's Singularity Makes Them 1st Artist Ever To Achieve 28 No. 1s On Billboard World Digital Song Sales Chart - soompi

Increasingly, modern life depends on how skillfully we shuttle electrons through the nanoscale mazes etched on computer chips. These processors arent just for laptops anymoretheyre used in your car, your thermostat, your refrigerator and microwave.

And the pandemic has revealed just how deeply our dependence runs.

A global shortage of computer chips, brought on by vacillating demand and supply chain issues, is currently rippling through device-makers, of course, but also makers of cars, vacuum cleaners, and stove vents.

Clearly, were hooked.

So, perhaps its no surprise that when companies announce better, faster, more efficient computer chips, the world takes notice. This week, it was IBMs turn to make headlines.

The company, once synonymous with all things computing, announced that its demonstrated a 2-nanometer (nm) chipmaking process for the first time.

In a press release, IBM said the new process would yield some 50 billion transistors on a chip the size of a fingernail. It would also bring chips that are 75 percent more efficient or 45 percent faster than todays 7-nm chips.

On its face, it would seem IBM just leapt far ahead in the race for top chip tech. Intels latest chips use a 10-nm process and TSMCs use a 7-nm process. And the company has made some very cool and notable progress here. But comparing chips is complicated. So, its worth dissecting the news a bit more to better understand the bigger picture.

Progress in computer chips has long been measured in nanometer-sized steps. Each step down yields ever more componentsmost notably, transistorspacked into the same area. And there was a time, in decades past, when the nanometer nomenclature actually did match the size of certain chip elements. But that time has passed. As chip technology advanced, the measurements of chip components decoupled from each generations naming convention.

By the time chips made the last big leap to FinFETa 3D transistor design shaped like a fina little over a decade ago, the industrys node number was virtually meaningless. It didnt relate to any dimension on the chip. Theres currently a debate over what new number, or combination of numbers, better reflects progress. And although this too is proving rather complicated, one spec experts propose is transistor density per square millimeter.

To see how the old naming convention is confusing, compare Intels 10-nm chips with TSMCs 7-nm chips. The two actually have roughly equivalent transistor densities, with Intels 100 million transistors per square millimeter actually edging out TSMCs 91 million per square millimeter. (Go here for a handy table comparing process size and transistor density of chips.)

IBM didnt announce transistor density explicitly. But after reaching out to clarify exactly what sized fingernail they were referencingrepresentatives of the company said about 150 square millimetersthe publication AnandTech calculated IBMs new process would yield some 333 million transistors per square millimeter. Which is, indeed, beyond anything in production. That said, a 3-nm chip TSMC is making for Apple could boast almost 300 million transistors per square millimeter and enter production as soon as next year.

The more significant, though less-heralded news here, is the design of the transistors themselves. IBMs new technologycalled nanosheet or gate-all-around transistorsis the long-awaited successor to todays FinFET transistors. The company has been working on the the tech since 2017.

FinFET transistors consist of a fin-shaped channel surrounded on three sides by a gate that controls the flow of electrons. But IBMs nanosheet (or gate-all-around) transistors have a layered channel instead. The layers are stacked on top of each other and, like three pigs-in-a-blanket, are surrounded by the gate on all sides. This last bit is the most critical piece. Gate-all-around transistors provide better control of current through the channel, prevent leakage, and boost efficiency.

Its a tremendously exciting technology, Jess del Alamo, a professor at MIT who specializes in novel transistor technologies, told Wired. Its a completely new design that pushes forward the roadmap for the future. And while IBM may be the first to show the tech off at this level, they likely wont be the last. Samsung and TSMC will probably follow suit.

Its too early to make serious performance comparisons between todays production chips and future chips using IBMs new transistors, but its safe to say theyll offer notable improvements. Dan Hutcheson, CEO of analytics company VLSI Research, told Wired IBMs estimated performance improvements actually seemed conservative and called the work a milestone for the industry.

When might you buy a device with one of these chips? Likely not for a bit.

Though IBM still designs chips, it sold its chipmaking business in 2014. This new tech hails from its research facility in Albany, New York and is a demonstrator, not a production-ready chip. In the coming years, IBM will complete the process, at which point it may make its way into production chips by way of licensing deals with partners like Intel and Samsung.

The industry isnt likely to stand still in the interim. Theres a renaissance of sorts in the chip industry right now.

Its no longer only about spending billions to wring a few more drops from traditional chips. Theres energy and innovation reinvigorating the sector and bringing about a Cambrian explosion of bizarre designs for special purposes, like AI. And much of it is taking place outside big companies.

For the first time in years, venture capital is pouring into startupsmore than $12 billion, in fact, went to over 400 chip companies in 2020 alone.

So, even amid this years chip drought, it seems the monsoon is gathering.

Image Credit: IBM

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IBM's New Chip Technology Shows Off the Next Big Step in Moore's Law - Singularity Hub

By David K. Johnson, Ph.D., Kings CollegeOne definition of a universe would seem to be a space-time continuum and all the entities it contains. (Image: Coldcreation/Public domain)Definitions of Universe and Multiverse

What definition could capture the relevant concept? It might be said that a universe is simply a collection of matter that is closed off from outside causal interaction. But by that definition, it would be impossible to travel from one universe to the other; the travel would be a causal interaction.

A better definition of universe would seem to be a space-time continuum and all the entities it contains. This would keep us from identifying some subset of matter in our universe as a universe itself, but would also seem to allow for the possibility of other universes and travel between them.

The most common way to understand a multiverse is to imagine that our universe lives on a membrane, or brane, along with many other universes (that also live on branes) in what is called the bulk. Its like the multiverse is a giant closed book, and there is a universe on every page.

This is a transcript from the video series Sci-Phi: Science Fiction as Philosophy. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

Its widely acknowledged that our universe began when a Singularity exploded with a Big Bangand many physicists, like Ed Tryon, suspect that the Singularity (which was the source of the Big Bang) was the result of a quantum fluctuation in the vacuum that existed prior to our universe. How is that possible?

Well, simply put: not even vacuums are empty. They contain no matter, sure, but they are still filled with quantum activity. And such quantum activity can, randomly, generate matter. Give a large enough vacuum a long enough time, and a large amount of matter could be produced. Such matter would briefly be contained in a tiny dense hot point that explodes, causing that matter to expand out. Something very much like this is what generated our universe.

Now, people used to wonder whether gravity would eventually pull all the matter of our universe back inthe big crunch, it was called. But now it is known that the force of gravity is not strong enough to do this and that indeed the expansion of the universe is accelerating. What many scientists now expect is that the universe will end in what is called a heat death.

All entropy will stop, every atom will decay, and things will be back down to a vacuum. But that vacuum will still be teeming with quantum activity. According to the work of physicists Sean Carroll and Jennifer Chen, given long enough, that could produce another big bang. Indeed, this could have already happened many times over, and happen many times over in the future.

Learn more about The Orville, Orwell, and the Black Mirror.

Each one of these new collections of matter should be described as a new universe. Each one of these consecutive collections of matter would be in its own space-time continuum. If so, ours is just the latest in an infinite series of universes, and all of reality consists of what might be called an oscillating multiverse.

At this point, one might argue that an oscillating multiverse wouldnt really count as a multiverse, because all of the universes arent happening at the same time. To really be a multiverse, the events of each universe have to be happening simultaneouslylike they are on the previously discussed view that has multiple universes all stacked up in the bulk.

But, according to Einsteins Theory of Relativity, simultaneity is relative to the reference frame. So, only two events in the same universe can be simultaneous, and even then only in certain reference frames.

Its actually meaningless to think of two events in two different universes in the bulk as happening at the same time, just like words on two different pages of a book cant be on the same line.

Indeed, since (on both models) each universe would be contained in its own space-time continuum, the only difference between a bulk multiverse and an oscillating multiverse is how it is pictured in the mind. The formers universes are stacked vertically, the latters are laid out horizontally.

Learn more about the Prime Directive and postcolonialism.

An oscillating multiverse is not that different from Alexander Vilenkins conception of the multiverse, based on the theory of inflation. Inflation is a period of super-fast expansion of space that can be slowed locally by specific instances of quantum activity.

This is how quantum fluctuations can produce a big bang. When a fluctuation slows the inflation, the energy that drove inflation spills over igniting a hot fireball of particles and radiation. A big bang.

But inflation continues elsewhere, where that quantum activity had no effect. This continually creates more space for the same thing to happen again. Somewhere else, some other quantum activity slows inflation, and boomanother expanding bubble.

And since inflation is eternal, this would happen an infinite amount of times. Its not clear whether such universes should be pictured as being stacked or laid out consecutively. But regardless, it seems this would rightly be called a multiverse.

The best simple definition of universe would seem to be a space-time continuum and all the entities it contains. This would seem to allow for the possibility of other universes and travel between them.

Many scientists believe the universe will end in a heat death. Because gravity isnt strong enough to pull everything together, the universe will expand until all entropy stops and all atoms decay. This will leave a vacuum that still has quantum activity. However, according to the work of physicists Sean Carroll and Jennifer Chen, given long enough, that could produce another big bang.

Both have infinite cycles of rebirth. However, how they are pictured in the mind is different. In the bulk multiverse, the universes are stacked vertically, and in the oscillating multiverse, they are laid out horizontally.

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The Infinite Rebirth of the Universe - The Great Courses Daily News

As blockchain technology disrupts traditional industry standards, the list of progressive investors willing to stake their money has increased significantly. Leveraging this ongoing investment trend, both upcoming and ongoing projects are attracting millions of dollars from private investors, shaping a new era of decentralization.

A new derivative exchange, Globe Derivative Exchange (Globe DX), has successfully closed its recent seed funding round. Backed by top-class blockchain VCs such as Pantera Capital, Y Combinator, CMT Digital, Draper Dragon, Wave Financial, Republic Crypto, and Okex, Globe DX closed the private round, raising a total of $18 million.

Derivatives spearhead the crypto exchange ecosystem, accounting for a large share of the total revenue generated by crypto businesses. Thanks to a platform loaded with unique features, Globe DXs recent pre-sale attracted massive participation from VCs.

With more than 200 strategic partners backing the platforms ecosystem, Globe DX has already fashioned a capable platform. It offers exposure to the Crypto Volatility Index, includes all features traders demand from a global derivatives exchange platform, and is designed to attract novices alongside seasoned crypto traders.

Decentralized finance (defi) projects are drawing in a lot of venture capital money, and the newest project to successfully close its seed funding round is BENQI. The company has successfully raised $6 million from investors and is now preparing to start its much-awaited ICO.

Led by Ascensive Assets, the funding round attracted some of the biggest names in Defi and venture capital, including Mechanism Capital, Market Across, Spartan Group, Dragonfly Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Ava Labs, Arrington XRP Capital, and many more.

BENQI introduced an Avalanche-based decentralized noncustodial liquidity protocol to enable users to lend, borrow, and earn from digital assets efficiently. With the funding secured, BENQI will roll out its protocol on the mainnet in May 2021 and add token pools in the coming days. As the defi ecosystem on Avalanche is poised to explode, BENQIs breakthrough consensus protocol will ensure instantaneous transactions at the lowest possible fees.

With dozens of new projects exploring the use of blockchain technology and defi platforms across several commercial use cases, investors seem incredibly eager to sign staggeringly large checks for anything defi-related.

Riding on the investment trend, Jigstack, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), closed its public and private funding rounds, raising a total of $3 million. Both rounds witnessed overwhelming participation from leading investors such as DHC Capital, Blocksync Ventures, X21 Digital, Moonwhale Ventures, Exnet Network, and more.

Jigstack governs a portfolio of Ethereum network assets and protocols such as Lemonade, Stakbank, and Ethlink, each of which adds value to Jigstacks native STAK token. The team behind Jigstack has designed an ecosystem to help engineer and deploy institutional-grade decentralized tools for every business need.

Singularity DAO, a platform offering AI-powered defi portfolios, has successfully raised $2.7 million in its recent private sale funding. The sale, led by Alphabit, attracted several prominent investors from the crypto universe, including QCP Capital, Genesis Block Ventures, Magnus Capital, SMO Capital, AU21, Moonwhale Ventures, and Jun Capital.

The defi project Singularity DAO is an extended arm of the blockchain-centric AI marketplace, Singularity NET. It offers a suite of dynamically managed portfolios that can automatically adjust to meet changing market trends and generate new opportunities. Besides, the platform will also help optimize on-chain trading to boost decentralized exchange (DEX) liquidity by continually rolling out new predictive data models for digital asset management.

With a three-layered blockchain architecture powered and optimized by Singularity NETs AI, the platform is designed to offer decentralized governance using Sing DAO tokens. The successful investment round will play a critical role in amping up the development phase of the Singularity DAO project for its mainnet launch.

Which of the four projects mentioned in the roundup do you find the most promising and why? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Funding Roundup: Derivatives and Defi Draw a Fresh Influx of VC Firms and Private Investors Finance Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

The Phantom is VALORANTs more subtle assault rifle, offering less recoil and no bullet tracers. And with a boatload of stellar cosmetics, players can tap heads and look good while doing it.

The Phantom is fortunate enough to have so many incredible skins with interesting animations. These cosmetics can do anything from sucking your enemy into a black hole to sending a bull out to launch your target into the air. But with plenty of options to choose from, there are definitely some skins that are better than the rest.

Here are the best Phantom skins in VALORANT.

VALORANT players were blessed with a cool thematic, great animations, a badass finisher, and flawless variants in the Oni. The skin is as close to perfect as it gets.

Oni has roots in Japanese folklore, featuring the horned demon-like ogre directly in its design. Upgrading the skin's animations gives you a cool spiritual aura emanating from the skin and a finisher that calls swords from the sky to trap your opponent while cherry blossoms fill the air. And let's not forget the beautiful AriZona Green Tea variant, which combines a mint green with bright pink hues. As one of the Phantom's oldest skins, Oni certainly sets the bar high.

Prime 2.0 brought back the ever-so-popular thematic with some minor adjustments, throwing a Phantom into the mix. And it doesn't disappoint.

Taking inspiration from a hypercar, according to senior weapon artist Chris Stone, the Prime Phantom is sleek, clean, and modern. It maintains a similar reload animation to its predecessor while throwing in some exhaust ports on the side for light to shine through. And its finisher literally summons a bull to toss your enemy into the air for a neon explosion. Bringing back Prime was an excellent idea, giving Phantom users a pay-to-win skin, too.

Riot devs surprised fans with a second Glitchpop bundle, delivering the popular skin line to VALORANT's most-used weapons. And it was a godsend to players who enjoy the cyberpunk thematic.

Riot's intention with the bundle was to make "everything [look] uniform and "[follow] the same design" as the first Glitchpop bundle, producer of skins Preeti Khanolkar previously said in a February interview with HITSCAN. So the Phantom boasts the familiar blend of neon colors and industrial frame seen in the previous iteration. You also get light-hearted and humorous stickers throughout and finishing an opponent leads to an explosion of colorful advertisements. The gun skin sounds amazing, with its silenced shots taking on a more futuristic tone. Riot hit it out of the park with this skin line, offering a fun cosmetic that isn't distracting considering all its bright colors.

League of Legends players who are fans of the MOBA's Pulsefire skins will love Ion.

Ion uses a futuristic palette of white and blue, with a core at its center fueling the charge. Every time you reload the weapon, you seemingly replace the core with a new one. It sounds great and pulses geometric shapes when you shoot or equip it. And its finisher predictably explodes the enemy in a spherical electro-pulse. Ion is a skin for everyone since it's not too showy or distracting and still offers a clean look.

The Singularity Phantom is a polished skin with some of the best animations in the game.

Seemingly held together by a powerful force from space, the weapon deconstructs and comes back together whenever you reload. Its muzzle flash is like a small black hole that foreshadows its finisher animation, a larger black hole that sucks your opponents in to never be seen again (until the next round, of course). And the Singularity Phantom has some of the best variants in the game, with the most intriguing being the lightning-struck blue and yellow colorway. This cosmetic is versatile and an all-around crowd-pleaser, making it an easy pickup for all players.

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Here are the best Phantom skins in VALORANT - Dot Esports

The human body consist of around 20 different elements and most of them are made inside ancient stars. The hydrogen atoms in a humans body were formed in the Big Bang, according to New Scientist, which claims to be the worlds most popular weekly science and technology publication.

The publication in a recent article said that upon the deconstruction of humans into atoms, we would get various elements including Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen and Calcium. The hydrogen atoms in a humans body account for a little over a tenth of your mass and these atoms were formed in the Big Bang, it said. Tesla CEO Elon Musk drew a conclusion of this and said that 1/10th of a humans body is 13.8 billion years old, referring to the age of the universe as per Big Bang theory.

According to the article of the publication, upon deconstructing an 80kg human into atoms, we would get 52 kg Oxygen, 14.4 kg Carbon, 8kg Hydrogen, 2.4 kg Nitrogen, 1.12kg Calcium, 880g Phosphorus, 200g Sulphur, 200 g Potassium,120g Sodium, 120g Chlorine, 40 g Magnesium, 4.8 g Iron, 3 g Fluorine, 2.6 g Zinc, 0.37 g Strontium, 0.0128 g Iodine, 0.08 g Copper and0.014 Molybdenum.

The Big bang theory gives an explanation about the beginning of the universe. It describes how the universe started with a small singularity. Over the next13.8 billion years, they inflated to the cosmos. The theory says that the universe was created in a massive explosion that not only created the majority of matter but the physical laws that govern our ever-expanding cosmos. The Singularity began expanding, and the universe we know began to grow.

The theory comes from mathematical formulas and models and the majority of the astronomical community accepts it.

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Elon Musk Believes 1/10th of a Humans Body is 13.8 Billion Years Old - News18

K-pop boyband BTS' legions of fans have once again proved that they are a force to be reckoned with.

For member V's upcoming 26th birthday in December, fans from his biggest fan club in China, known as China V Bar, raised a record-breaking 3 million yuan (S$618,000) in under one minute.

Even though his birthday is still half a year away, within one hour of fundraising, the birthday fund had surged to a staggering 5.4 million yuan, according to the fan club's announcement on Twitter last Saturday (May 8).

Last year, it had raised 1 million yuan in one minute and had taken 59 days to raise 5 million yuan. It subsequently reached a total of 7 million yuan after 80 days, which was a record at that time.

The money was put to good use, as the fan club built a school, a road and a bridge in V's name.

And in a show of public adoration, it also put up a birthday advertisement on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai last year, with V becoming the first solo South Korean star to have his face splashed on the world's tallest building.

V's various fans clubs around the world have also rallied to raise funds for more than 25 charities for the third anniversary of his solo hit Singularity, which was released on May 7, 2018.

Fans from countries such as the Philippines, Myanmar, Nepal, Britain, United States, Kenya, as well as South Korea, picked various causes to support.

These included Covid-19 vaccinations and pandemic aid, building a classroom, supporting a children's hospital and sending relief aid to those affected by ethnic conflict in Myanmar.

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China fans of BTS' V raise $1.1 million in one hour for his birthday - The Straits Times

The sun isnt the only star to produce stellar flares. On April 21, 2021, a team of astronomers published new research describing the brightest flare ever measured from Proxima Centauri in ultraviolet light. To learn about this extraordinary event, and what it might mean for any life on the planets orbiting Earths closest neighboring star, The Conversation spoke with Parke Loyd, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University and co-author of the paper. Excerpts from the conversation are below and have been edited for length and clarity.

Proxima Centauri is the closest star to this solar system. A couple of years ago, a team discovered that there is a planet called Proxima b orbiting the star. Its just a little bit bigger than Earth, its probably rocky, and it is in what is called the habitable zone, or the Goldilocks zone. This means that Proxima b is about the right distance from the star so that it could have liquid water on its surface.

But this star system differs from the sun in a pretty key way. Proxima Centauri is a small star called a red dwarfits around 15 percent of the radius of our sun, and its substantially cooler. So Proxima b, in order for it to be in that Goldilocks zone, actually is a lot closer to Proxima Centauri than Earth is to the sun.

You might think that a smaller star would be a tamer star, but thats actually not the case at allred dwarfs produce stellar flares a lot more frequently than the sun does. So Proxima b, the closest planet in another solar system with a chance for having life, is subject to space weather that is a lot more violent than the space weather in Earths solar system.

In 2018, my colleague Meredith MacGregor discovered flashes of light coming from Proxima Centauri that looked very different from solar flares. She was using a telescope that detects light at millimeter wavelengths to monitor Proxima Centauri and saw a big of flash of light in this wavelength. Astronomers had never seen a stellar flare in millimeter wavelengths of light.

My colleagues and I wanted to learn more about these unusual brightenings in the millimeter light coming from the star and see whether they were actually flares or some other phenomenon. We used nine telescopes on Earth, as well as a satellite observatory, to get the longest set of observationsabout two days worthof Proxima Centauri with the most wavelength coverage that had ever been obtained.

Immediately we discovered a really strong flare. The ultraviolet light of the star increased by over 10,000 times in just a fraction of a second. If humans could see ultraviolet light, it would be like being blinded by the flash of a camera. Proxima Centauri got bright really fast. This increase lasted for only a couple of seconds, and then there was a gradual decline.

This discovery confirmed that indeed, these weird millimeter emissions are flares.

Astronomers are actively exploring this question at the moment because it can kind of go in either direction. When you hear ultraviolet radiation, youre probably thinking about the fact that people wear sunscreen to try to protect ourselves from ultraviolet radiation here on Earth. Ultraviolet radiation can damage proteins and DNA in human cells, and this results in sunburns and can cause cancer. That would potentially be true for life on another planet as well.

On the flip side, messing with the chemistry of biological molecules can have its advantages; it could help spark life on another planet. Even though it might be a more challenging environment for life to sustain itself, it might be a better environment for life to be generated to begin with.

But the thing that astronomers and astrobiologists are most concerned about is that every time one of these huge flares occurs, it basically erodes away a bit of the atmosphere of any planets orbiting that star, including this potentially Earth-like planet. And if you dont have an atmosphere left on your planet, then you definitely have a pretty hostile environment to life; there would be huge amounts of radiation, massive temperature fluctuations, and little or no air to breathe. Its not that life would be impossible, but having the surface of a planet basically directly exposed to space would be an environment totally different than anything on Earth.

Thats anybodys guess at the moment. The fact that these flares are happening doesnt bode well for that atmosphere being intact, especially if theyre associated with explosions of plasma like what happens on the sun. But thats why were doing this work. We hope the folks who build models of planetary atmospheres can take what our team has learned about these flares and try to figure out the odds for an atmosphere being sustained on this planet.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: Hubble/European Space Agency/WikimediaCommons, CC BY-SA

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Massive Flare Seen Close to Our Solar System: What It Means for Chances of Alien Neighbors - Singularity Hub