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Explosion on The Sun - Solar Flares the 8 Minute Journey

Solar system flares are the biggest explosions in the universe, and the most energetic. These folks were first discovered by Galileo in the early 17th century, and later on in 1859 by an English amateur astronomer by the name of Richard Christopher Carrington. After that, they haven't yet only been observed on the sun, but they are also viewed on other stars in the process.

A solar flare is actually a large explosion in the sun atmosphere which will release approximately 6 × 1025 joules of energy(in regards to sixth of the total energy output of the sun each second). Although challenging predict their occurrence with any certainty, the only warning lies in the proven fact that most proton storms take some hours from the time of visual detection to get to earth's orbit (providing little while to prep because of its impact).

Solar flares are caused by a process called magnetic reconnection whereby opposite magnetic fields on the sun's surface come together causing a sudden release of energy. Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere (photosphere, corona, and chromosphere), causing plasma to heat up to tens of millions of kelvins(a unit of measurement of temperature) and accelerating electrons, protons, and heavier ions to near the speed of light. In fact, while the fastest day at the moon took 8 hours and 38 minutes, solar flares usually merely a 8 minutes to locate their distance to the earths ionosphere an can have damaging effects. These flares produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum by any means wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays as a consequence, could cause damaging effects on the earth including: Loss of power systems, radiation poisoning, rendering chip ran vehicles powerless, affecting inter-planetary travel for astronauts, and also cell phones (and also other electronics) and satellite interruptions (and also other systems operating at those frequencies).

Most flares occur in active regions around sunspots (visible dark spots on the photosphere of the sun), where intense magnetic fields penetrate the photosphere (deepest region of the sun) to link the corona (type of plasma atmosphere that extends far into space) to the solar interior. Flares are powered by the sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the corona. When a solar flare is exceptionally powerful, you can get coronal mass ejections(massive burst of wind, plasma, magnetic energy is released into space).

Solar activity varies by having an 11-year cycle (the solar cycle). At the peak of the cycle you can find typically more sunspots on the Sun, and thus more solar flares. NASA predicts as the sun approaches its 11 year cycle in 2012, when the sun aligns with the milky way galaxy(a meeting which only occurs approx. every 211,000 years), will increase the amount of solar flares the sun experiences as well as perhaps increased dangers to the earth (caused by potential increased coronal mass ejections).

Although solar flares can be troublesome occasionally, they have also been associated with resulting in the breathtaking southern and northern polar lights phenomenons for example the aurora borealis and aurora australis.

The noticably solar storm in history happened in 1859 (called the Carrington Event named after English amateur astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington)causing telegraph wires in both the United states of america and Europe to spontaneously short out (lasting 8 days), causing numerous fires, and the phenomena of the Northern Lights to get observed as far south as Rome, Havana and Hawaii. That it was recorded that the Northern Lights were so bright, located on the internet read the newspaper solely looking at the illumination. Most recently, a 1994 solar storm caused major malfunctions to 2 communications satellites, disrupting newspaper, network television and nationwide radio service throughout Canada.

Whether the sun will be in its active or quiet period on or before 2012, scientists is able to only predict. The fact remains that solar storms occur almost daily and tend to be quite definitely a significant part of our existence. The National Academy of Sciences report says a huge solar event could induce ground currents that may knock out 300 key transformers within about 90 seconds. Just as with any impending threats to the earth, it usually is a smart idea to hold fast to the old addage,"it's preferable to be safe than sorry" and grow cooked by informing yourself on the best way to survive a huge solar storm.

Reference sun.