solar flare tagged posts

The impulsive phase of the solar flare, in which most energy is released. Panel (a) a snapshot of Hα + 1.0 Å image showing post-flare brightening associated with coronal rain. The white box marks the ROI where the brightenings occurred. Panel (b) the zoomed-in view of the ROI marked by the white box in panel (a). The slits, with different colors, mark where the brightenings’ cross-sectional width were measured. Panel (c) the pseudo Dopplergrams (with red corresponding to red shift) of the ROI. Panels (d–g) the normalized Hα + 1.0 Å intensity profiles along the slits and the Gaussian fits. For reference, the color of each profile is the same as the color of the slit (see panel b). The Gaussian FWHM and ±3σ are provided in the panels. Credit: NJIT

During a December 2013 solar flare, three NASA missions observed a current sheet form — a strong clue for explaining what initiates the flares. This animation shows four views of the flare from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, and JAXA/NASA’s Hinode, allowing scientists to make unprecedented measurements of its characteristics. The current sheet is a long, thin structure, especially visible in the views on the left. Those two animations depict light emitted by material with higher temperatures, so they better show the extremely hot current sheet. Credit: NASA/JAXA/SDO/STEREO/Hinode (courtesy Zhu, et al.)

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash in the lower right hand side of the sun – on Sept. 28, 2015. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extraordinarily hot material in flares and which is typically colorized in red. Credits: NASA/SDO