Solar Storms: Coronal Mass Ejections Viewed In Detail By NASA Spacecraft

ScienceDaily ^ | Apr. 15, 2009 | NASA

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Twin NASA spacecraft have provided scientists with their first view of the speed, trajectory, and three-dimensional shape of powerful explosions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. This new capability will dramatically enhance scientists' ability to predict if and how these solar tsunamis could affect Earth.

When directed toward our planet, these ejections can be breathtakingly beautiful and yet potentially cause damaging effects worldwide. The brightly colored phenomena known as auroras -- more commonly called Northern or Southern Lights -- are examples of Earth's upper atmosphere harmlessly being disturbed by a CME. However, ejections can produce a form of solar cosmic rays that can be hazardous to spacecraft, astronauts and technology on Earth.

Space weather produces disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing wide-spread blackouts. These sun storms can interfere with communications between ground controllers and satellites and with airplane pilots flying near Earth's poles. Radio noise from the storm also can disrupt cell phone service. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.

NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft are providing the unique scientific tool to study these ejections as never before. Launched in October 2006, STEREO's nearly identical observatories can make simultaneous observations of these ejections of plasma and magnetic energy that originate from the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona. The spacecraft are stationed at different vantage points. One leads Earth in its orbit around the sun, while the other trails the planet.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Resource:

These pages are about solar flares,

[wastedyears]

What happens if one of them is directly in the path of an ejection?

[Yossarian]

What happens if one of them is directly in the path of an ejection?

Then STEREO turns into the "Man, the Other-one's Nuked! Observatory" (MONO).

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!

[Dr. Zzyzx]

IIRC from my high school science, solar flares cause sunspots, the matter cools out in space, then falls back to the sun as darker, cooler matter. Since we haven’t had any sun spots for a long, long time, when exactly were these solar flares recorded?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach.

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[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Just found this:

Focused Solar Explosions Get Hotter

*****************************EXCERPT***********************

An image of the solar flare taken using the X-Ray Telescope onboard Hinode on June 7, 2007. This shows the flare loops in the solar atmopshere at temperatures exceeding 10 million degree Celsius. (Credit: Courtesy of JAXA)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2008) — Using data from the Hinode and RHESSI solar observatories, astronomers have discovered that solar flares - explosions in the atmosphere of the sun - get much hotter when they stay "focused".

Dr Ryan Milligan of Oak Ridge Association of Universities, Tennessee, who is stationed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the US, will present his result on Wednesday 2 April at RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast.

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy. The largest can release as much energy as a billion one-megaton nuclear bombs. However, the flare observed in this study was a much more common "micro" flare. Researchers at space agencies like NASA and ESA want to understand flares because they generate radiation that can be hazardous to unprotected astronauts, like those walking on the surface of the Moon.

"A flare typically divides its energy between directly heating the solar atmosphere and accelerating particles," said Dr. Milligan. "These unusual flares seem to focus on one task, devoting all their energy to heating. This allows them to become millions of degrees hotter than their multi-tasking cousins."

Flares normally occur above loops of electrically conducting gas, called plasma, in the Sun's atmosphere. When a typical flare goes off, it heats the plasma and sends beams of electrons racing down the sides of the loops. The electron beams evaporate more plasma from the Sun's visible surface, which expands back up the loops.

"This evaporated plasma has traditionally been believed to be the source of the hottest temperatures seen in solar flares," said Dr Milligan. "However, the flare in this new observation reached a temperature of 15 million degrees Celsius - some five million degrees hotter than expected for a flare of this size - without any evidence for beams of accelerated electrons."