Solar Flare

solar flare and shock wave in Sun's atmosphereSee all videos for this article

Learn how solar flares can affect satellites, rockets, telecommunications systems and activity on the surface of the EarthSee all videos for this article

solar flare, sudden intense brightening in the solar corona, usually in the vicinity of a magnetic inversion near a sunspot group. The flare develops in a few minutes, or even seconds, and may last several hours. High-energy particles, electron streams, hard X-rays, and radio bursts are often emitted, and a shock wave occurs when the flare interacts with the interplanetary medium. The flare occurs above the surface in the corona, and energy deposited in the surface brings up a superhot cloud, about 100 million Kelvins (100 million °C, or 180 million °F), which is a strong, long-lasting source of X-rays. Smaller flares do not show all these attributes, and flares rarely occur in the three or four years of sunspot minimum. The biggest flares occur in association with large sunspots that have sharp magnetic gradients and large currents, which are the source of the flare energy. There is a class of spotless flares associated with filament eruptions; they are large and sometimes produce coronal mass ejections but produce few high-energy particles.

Flares are brighter than the whole Sun in X-rays and in ultraviolet light. X-ray photons and high-energy particles arrive immediately, but the main particle flux arrives a few days later.