NASA scientists figured out how to have flares
MOSCOW, 27 Jun — RIA Novosti. A small solar flare and powerful coronal emissions arise under the action of the same forces that cause the magnetic field of lights out and “pull” a hot matter of the sun, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.
“Understanding how there are all types of solar flares, it is necessary in order to predict the nature of its activity in the future. Powerful coronal emissions can disrupt satellites and cause other unpleasant effects, so it is extremely important to know how they arise and how you can observe them,” says Peter Viper (Peter Wyper) from Durham University (UK).
The earth and the Sun have strong magnetic fields that are constantly interacting with each other and the structure of which is continuously changing itself. These changes often cause power lines to their fields broken and then re-connect with each other.
This phenomenon, which physicists call “reconnection”, leads to the release of huge amounts of energy, often with explosive character. This is the cause of solar flares and Northern lights at the poles of the Earth released the energy of the magnetic field disperses the particles in the vicinity of our planet and makes the Sun to throw huge masses of hot plasma during flares on its surface.
Viper and his colleagues from NASA studied how born two different types of solar flares — powerful coronal emission of plasma (CME) capable of destroying civilization and to deprive the Earth of its radiation “shield” and a small flash, the so-called coronal jets, in fact, does not affect the “space weather”.
As scholars have noted, those and other emissions matter to the Sun related to the fact that the magnetic field lines lights for some reason go into space, dragging a hot plasma.
Then, leave this lines the interior of the Sun by the same or different reasons, remains a subject of debate among scientists. Part of astronomers believes that both large and small coronal emissions result from the “bailout” so-called filaments, lines separating the fields of different polarity on the Sun’s surface, when a sharp change of polarity of these regions, and others suggest that coronal jets occur in consequence of some other processes associated with the birth of the solar wind, not flares.
British and American scientists tested whether this is actually creating a computer model of a miniature coronal emission, is similar in size to the coronal jets. As planned by the scientists, the comparison of results of calculations and real data and photos of jets in the Sun was to demonstrate which of the two hypotheses is correct.
According to the Viper and his colleagues, was right first guess — the jets and powerful coronal emission is likely generated by the same mechanisms related to the behavior of regions of different polarity on the surface of the Sun. If so, this will significantly facilitate the prediction of solar flares and will help scientists to better identify possible danger to life, equipment and people on the Ground.
In the near future, a team of Viper plans to check their calculations, by studying the occurrence of major flares in regions with a different configuration of magnetic fields, and the behavior of fields and plasma flows at their birth.