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Holly: Space weather is the field that studies how
what's going on on the sun affects us here on the Earth--in our near space
environment--and on the space environment on other planets. Alex: For a large
eruption the sun produces a flash of light,
which we call a solar flare. It also produces a huge
ball of material traveling away from the sun we call a coronal mass ejection,
and both of those phenomena can accelerate
subatomic particles which we call solar energetic particles. These three
things together make up a solar storm.
Music. Phil: A coronal mass ejection,
or CME, is an eruption of plasma
from the sun that shoots out into space, and it could affect
us here at Earth. Music.
A solar flare is a huge release of energy
that converts the magnetic energy of the sun
into heat, into light, it accelerates particles,
and can really heat up the plasma in the order of minutes to over 60 million
Kelvin. Music.
Solar energetic particles are particles of
plasma that are accelerated at the flare site from the energy
released in the flare. And these particles can be accelerated up to almost
80 percent of the speed of light. Holly: And a coronal mass ejection, when it's
traveling so fast, creates a shock. And that can create solar energetic
particles. Music.
Phil: Solar flares and CMEs are all driven by magnetic
reconnection. This is where the sun churns up the magnetic field
and then it causes oppositely magnetic fields to then
annihilate. But you can't just get rid of magnetic field, you can't just get
rid of energy, you have to convert to energy and transfer energy to other things, such as
plasma motions--accelerating the plasma--heating up the plasma,
and also giving out more light. Holly: But a CME
is that material and that magnetic field line just getting thrown away from the
sun due to this interaction. Whereas a flare is the
close to the surface phenomena where the twisting and the snapping occur,
and therefore you get all this heat and kinetic energy.
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Beeping