What exactly are solar storms?
What are solar storms?
Solar storms are a variety of disturbances that can occur on the surface of the Sun. This solar activity can affect the entire solar system through powerful impacts in magnetic fields and dictate space weather. Solar storms include solar flares, coronal mass ejections, solar particle events, and geomagnetic storms.
Solar Flares
Solar flares are intense bursts of radiation created from the release of highly concentrated magnetic energy. The radiation created from solar flares covers the entire electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from longer radio waves to shorter gamma rays. Flares are the most explosive events in our solar system and are equivalent to the amount of energy of millions of hydrogen bombs. They usually occur in the Sun’s most active regions, known as sunspots. These sunspots have the strongest magnetic fields on the Sun’s surface, which creates instability, thus releasing energy in the form of solar flares. When solar flares occur, they create a bright area on the surface of the Sun, lasting from minutes to hours, or even days.
Coronal Mass Ejections
The Sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona, is created by a strong magnetic field. In areas where the magnetic field is closed, the atmosphere can suddenly release a large amount of gas and magnetic fields that erupt from the Sun’s surface. This is known as a coronal mass ejection or a CME. Coronal mass ejections can contain up to billions of tons of matter that are accelerated through our solar system. They can move as slow as 250 kilometers per second, and as fast as 3000 kilometers per second. A fast CME can reach Earth in as little as 15 hours. As they move through space, CMEs begin to grow in size. A large CME can reach a size about a quarter of the distance between the Sun and Earth by the time it reaches our planet. Coronal mass ejections are sometimes associated with solar flares and can occur simultaneously, but they can also occur independently.
Solar Particle Events
Solar particle events or SPEs are injections of high-energy particles into outer space. These particles can include electrons, protons, alpha particles, or heavier rarer particles. SPEs usually occur within solar flare sites and are accelerated to extremely high speeds through shock waves created through fast coronal mass ejections. These speeds are so fast that some particles can travel from the Sun to Earth in a matter of minutes. They temporarily enhance the radiation within the planets' atmospheres.
Geomagnetic Storms
Geomagnetic storms are disturbances within the Earth’s magnetic field that are caused by solar activity. These solar storms can change the currents, plasmas, or fields generated from Earth. If the magnetic field arriving from the Sun is directed southward, it can interact strongly with the magnetic field from Earth. This causes energetic particles to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and hit over the Earth’s poles. Geomagnetic storms produce a rapid drop in the Earth’s magnetic field strength for several hours, and it can take days for the field to recover.
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Written by Kaylee Barrera
Sources
Coronal Mass Ejections | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/coronal-mass-ejections. Accessed 31 Aug. 2021.
Garner, Rob. “Solar Storm and Space Weather - Frequently Asked Questions.” NASA, 19 Mar. 2015, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/index.html.
Geomagnetic Storms | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms. Accessed 31 Aug. 2021.
Solar Flares. https://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/flare.htm. Accessed 31 Aug. 2021.
Solar Flares (Radio Blackouts) | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/solar-flares-radio-blackouts. Accessed 31 Aug. 2021.
What Is a Coronal Mass Ejection? | Space | EarthSky. 9 Dec. 2020, https://earthsky.org/space/what-are-coronal-mass-ejections/.
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