Solar Flares and Prominences

[Astronuc]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/27jan_solarflares.htm

January 27, 2005 - The biggest solar proton storm in 15 years erupted last week. NASA researchers discuss what it might have done to someone on the Moon.

Movie of one of the August 1972 solar flares http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/solarflares/seahorse_flare_med2.jpg

Save target as, then play it.

[Astronuc]

Some course notes on the Sun.

http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~alan/sun_course/Introduction/Main_menu.html

from

http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~alan/sun_course/solar.html

[Astronuc]

This caught my attention.

Time lapse movies of solar granulation evolution
http://www.kis.uni-freiburg.de/~pnb/granmovtext1.html


I also found mention of the largest solar flare ever observed.  It was so large that it overwhelmed the instrument on GOES-12.


http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/psfg,,.html

Cheap Aussie telescope captures world’s biggest solar flare
Reference: 05/173

With a radio telescope kit, costing just over A$200, Australian scientists have managed to accurately measure the size of the largest X-ray flare ever seen from our Sun.
16 September 2005

Australian scientists using a radio telescope kit costing just over A$200, have managed to accurately measure the size of the largest X-ray flare ever seen from our Sun -- something that a sensitive US satellite was unable to do.

The astronomers published their work in the Journal of Geophysical Research on 9 September 2005.
 
The flare, which erupted on 4 November 2003, was the most powerful ever recorded.

'This is 70 percent more powerful than the initial estimate. It was a staggering amount of energy – about the amount in ten thousand trillion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for 340,000 years at the current rate of consumption.' 

 

[Astronuc]

Quite an image from Hinode -

A detailed image of the Sun was taken by the Solar Optical Telescope on the newly launched Hinode spacecraft on November 20, 2006. It and other images, which NASA released for the first time on March 21, 2007, reveal that the Sun’s magnetic field is much more turbulent and dynamic than previously known. “For the first time, we are now able to make out tiny granules of hot gas that rise and fall in the sun's magnetized atmosphere,” said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophyics Division, Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/Hinode_2006324_lrg.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/solar-b/SolarB_Multimedia_Collection(Search_Agent)_archive_1.html

[Astronuc]

Some comments on magnetic field lines in stars:

Magnetic loops rise out of the plane of the disk at any angle - the global field geometry is 'tangled'

The field lines confine and carry plasma across the disk

Reconnection and snapping of the loops releases energy into the disk atmosphere - mostly in X-rays

The magnetic field also transfers angular momentum out of the disk system.  [In the sense that mass in the form of plasma extends outward]

[Astronuc]

Mystery of Sun's Superhot Corona May Be Whipped
Rippling magnetic fields finally spotted in the corona
By JR Minkel

New measurements provide the strongest evidence yet for wriggling magnetic waves that may explain why the solar corona is a good 200 times hotter than the surface of the sun: regular pulsations in the speed of charged, high-energy gas or plasma streaming from the sun combined with matching magnetic fields.

The findings point to magnetic field ripples known as Alfvén waves whipping plasma back and forth, releasing heat, according to a report published online by Science. Although the waves seem to be too tiny to transfer the energy needed to fully heat the corona, researchers say improved measurements may reveal that the waves are larger than they appear.

[Astronuc]

When Sunspots Collide
http://stardate.org/resources/gallery/gallery_detail.php?id=705
http://stardate.org/resources/gallery/gallery_detail.php?id=728
 
The second picture makes one feel small when realizing how big the sun is compared to earth.