Thursday, February 14, 2008

What is a Solar Flare?

The definition of a solar flare is the explosion that takes place in the Sun's atmosphere. Its impact has been compared to the energy equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. This solar flares take place in the corona and chromosphere. The corona is defined as the "luminous plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometres into spaced". These flares heat plasma up to tens of millions of kelvins and moving so rapidly that the end result is having electrons, protons and heavier ions move almost at the speed of light.

This build up of energy is associated with solar flares and may take long periods of time (several hours or days) to build up, but in contrast most flares can release energy in a matter of minutes!

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