solar flares tagged posts

The cold, dark chaos of space is filled with mystery. Fortunately, the ways in which we can peer into the mists of the void are increasing, and now include Kyoto University’s 3.8 meter Seimei telescope.

Using this new instrument—located on a hilltop in Okayama to the west of Kyoto—astronomers from Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Science and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan have succeeded in detecting 12 stellar flare phenomena on AD Leonis, a red dwarf 16 light years away. In particular, one of these flares was 20 times larger than those emitted by our own sun.

“Solar flares are sudden explosions that emanate from the surfaces of stars, including our own sun,” explains first author Kosuke Namekata.

“On rare occasions, an extrem...

This is a EOVSA radio intensity spectrogram of the 2017 September 10 solar flare, with frequency (vertical scale) and time (horizontal scale). Credit: New Jersey Institute of Technology’s expanded Owens Valley Solar Array

Last September, a massive new region of magnetic field erupted on the Sun’s surface next to an existing sunspot. The powerful collision of magnetic fields produced a series of potent solar flares, causing turbulent space weather conditions at Earth. These were the first flares to be captured, in their moment-by-moment progression, by New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) recently expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA).

With 13 antennas now working together, EOVSA was able to make images of the flare in multiple radio frequencies simultaneously for the first time...

1.Evolution of the magnetic field in two simulations of the formation of active solar regions. Top row: non-eruptive scenario where the configuration remains stable. Bottom row: eruptive scenario.
Credit: © E.Pariat, figure adapted from Pariat & al, A&A 2017
2. Time evolution of the value of a quantity based on magnetic helicity, for the various numerical simulations tested. This predictive quantity has high values before the eruption in the eruptive simulations (red, orange and yellow curves) and low values in the non-eruptive cases (black, violet, blue and cyan curves).
3. Artist’s impression of a solar flare and the twisted magnetic field that carries away the ejected solar material.

The emerging discipline of space meteorology aims to reliably predict solar flares so that we may better g...

This artist’s rendition shows the four identical MMS spacecraft flying near the sun-facing boundary of Earth’s magnetic field (blue wavy lines). The MMS mission has revealed the clearest picture yet of the process of magnetic reconnection between the magnetic fields of Earth and the sun — a driving force behind space weather, solar flares and other energetic phenomena. Credit: NASA

A new study provides the first major results of NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. The paper describes the first direct and detailed observation of magnetic reconnection, which occurs when 2 opposing magnetic field lines break and reconnect with each other, releasing massive amounts of energy. The discovery is a major milestone in understanding magnetism and space weather.

Evidence suggests reconnec...