Click on the image above for a larger .gif version.

No, this is not the flag of China (mainland) gone astray. It is an artist's rendition of ribbon structures in the atmosphere of a flaring dMe star, illustrating the compact regions that must be present to provide emission components with blackbody spectra. The authors liken these to tiny A0 stars, since that's about the spectral distribution needed. Here the white circle is a newly-forming A0 patch, and the purple circles are cooling ones; the black do is just meant to locate the center of the disk.

7 April 2012