Sun Produces Strongest Flare Ever Recorded

idontneedanickname writes "The BBC is reporting about the newest flare unleashed by the sun. According to NASA's SOHO website, "Today word came from the SEC that their best estimate was X28. We have a new number 1 X-ray flare for the record books." As usual there are magnificent images to be admired." This one's not headed straight for us...

Comments

Too bad it isn't heading this way

[empaler]

I *still* havent seen any of the promised Aurora Borealis [space.com] from previous flares.
It's been a decade since last I saw any.

So big it exceeds capacity

[Jesrad]

The solar flare produced proton wind in speed exceeding what the SOHO probe can measure. It also saturated the X-Ray detectors on NOAA's GOES satellites. X28 is an understatement, the actual value cannot be precisely determined, but is thought of being somewhere around X40 to X50. This is a logarithmic scale, NOAA says the peak X-Ray emission reached approximately 2 * 10e-3 W/ squared meter.

M-class solar flares' order of magnitude is 10e-5W/squared meter, X-class' is 10e-4W/ squared meter, and anything beyond 10e-3W/squared meter :
- was unheard of until a few days ago.
- is a Y-class MEGA FLARE! Tin-foil hat time.

On unrelated news, X-Plane now supports borealis auroras...

Re:Could this be from a colission?

[mikerich]

Could all this activity be caused by a colission of some object into the sun? I'm just wondering if the sun got pounded by some asteroids a few weeks ago and they screwed up the balance of the surface, causing geyser-like effects.

Highly unlikely. The heat from the Sun would vaporise anything long before impact.

Flares (including this one) tend to be linked with sunspots which are relatively cool (emphasis on the relatively there) areas of the Sun. The Sun is made of plasma - super-hot electrically-charged particles. The plasma convects, transferring energy to the surface of the Sun. As the plasma moves it creates enormous magnetic fields. Normally these are confined within the body of the Sun, but occasionally, the magnetic flux extends beyond the surface of the Sun as an enormous loop. At each point where the line emerges and re-enters the Sun are a group of sunspots.

Hot plasma streams along the line of flux, it usually confined to the magnetic flux, but occasionally it will break away as a so-called prominence.

Flares are relatively common, but their cause is not yet understood (if any solar activity experts are hanging around - please feel free to step in right about now :)). From memory, the most well-regarded theory is that ever-increasing amounts of energy is stored in the magnetic fields of the sun spot. As the field becomes twisted and tangled, the energy continues to build until a point when the magnetic field snaps back into a less-tangled state. At that point an enormous amount of energy and plasma are blasted into space in a very short period of time.

Best wishes,
Mike.