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Solar explosions, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, release large amounts of energy from the sun’s corona and can impact Earth and other planets. Changes in the sun’s activity level are caused by its rotation, creating a solar cycle. Scientists study solar flares to understand the sun’s patterns and their potential impact on human activities.
Solar explosions are sudden releases of energy from the solar atmosphere, known as the corona. While the explosions aren’t visible to the naked eye, they represent huge amounts of energy and can impact Earth and more distant planets as the energy travels through the solar system. During times of increased solar activity, solar flares can become severe enough to disable satellites and other equipment, as humans have learned to their chagrin.
Changes in the sun’s activity level are caused by the rotation of the sun. Like other bodies in space, the sun moves, and as it does, it creates a solar cycle caused by rotational forces along the sun’s surface. Solar flares typically begin with sunspots, dark areas that appear on the sun when the sun’s cooler inner core is temporarily exposed by the moving corona. When sunspots begin to spread, it can signal an expected increase in solar activity.
Solar flares, another type of solar flare, occur when the corona releases huge amounts of energy in a fraction of a second, causing a bright spot to appear. Solar flares often occur around sunspots, although they also occur within the corona, where they cannot be confirmed with visual observations. A large solar flare can release enough energy to interfere with communications on Earth, as the sun’s electromagnetic energy interacts with Earth’s communications systems and satellites.
In a radical form of solar flare called a coronal mass ejection (CME), the sun emits huge flares of plasma. These plasma flares can push against Earth’s atmosphere, causing particularly bright, prolonged, and brilliant auroras, and they also substantially increase radiation levels in space. CMEs are one reason why space travel is potentially very dangerous, as the increased level of radiation could pose a risk to living organisms in spacecraft.
Scientists can use the ebb and flow of solar explosions to track the sun’s cycles and to glean more information about how the sun works. The activities observed in the sun are known to occur in other stars as well, although researchers usually cannot see them in action due to the large distances involved. Understanding the patterns of solar flares is important to the business and scientific community, because solar flares can disrupt satellite launches, spacecraft flight and many other human activities, sometimes with devastating effects.
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