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    solar flare tagged posts

    Exotic Matter uncovered in the sun’s atmosphere

    May 26, 2019, Categories  Uncategorized

    A solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in 2015. Credit: NASA / SDO.
    A solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in 2015. Credit: NASA / SDO.

    Scientists have announced a major new finding about how matter behaves in the extreme conditions of the sun’s atmosphere. Their work has shed new light on the exotic but poorly understood ‘fourth state of matter,’ known as plasma, which could hold the key to developing safe, clean and efficient -nuclear energy generators on Earth.
    The scientists used large radio telescopes and ultraviolet cameras on a NASA spacecraft to.

    Most of the matter we encounter in our everyday lives comes in the form of solid, liquid or gas, but the majority of the Universe is composed of plasma – a highly unstable and electrically charged fluid. The Sun is also made up of this plasma.

    Despite being the most commo...

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    From Emergence to Eruption: Comprehensive Model Captures Life of a Solar Flare

    January 18, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Still image from an animated visualization of the solar flare modeled in the new study. The violet color represents plasma with temperature less than 1 million Kelvin. Red represents temperatures between 1 million and 10 million Kelvin, and green represents temperatures above 10 million Kelvin. See video at: https://youtu.be/kyhsBqB2x_Y
    Credit: Courtesy Mark Cheung, Lockheed Martin, and Matthias Rempel, NCAR

    A team of scientists has, for the first time, used a single, cohesive computer model to simulate the entire life cycle of a solar flare: from the buildup of energy thousands of kilometers below the solar surface, to the emergence of tangled magnetic field lines, to the explosive release of energy in a brilliant flash.

    The accomplishment, detailed in the journal Nature Astronomy...

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    From bright Flare Ribbons to Coronal Rain

    April 22, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The impulsive phase of the solar flare, in which most energy is released. Credit: NJIT

    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

    High-resolution images...

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    Seeing Double: NASA Missions measure Solar Flare from 2 Spots in Space

    April 20, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    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.)

    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.)

    Solar flares are intense bursts of light from the sun...

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