A bright area of the photosphere of the Sun visible in white light and best seen near the solar limb, although they occur all across the Sun. Faculae raise several hundred kilometers above the photosp
here and are associated with sunspots. They often appear immediately before the formation of a sunspot group and remain visible for several days or weeks after the disappearance of the spots. Faculae are formed when a strong magnetic field heats a region of the photosphere to higher temperatures than the surrounding area.
The exterior part of the solar corona, illuminated by solar light scattered or reflected by dust particles. The same phenomenon also produces the zodiacal light, much farther away from the Sun. The du
st particles are at most several microns in size and make up a disk stretching over almost 1 solar radius (700,000 km) from the Sun's surface. Unlike electrons, which are responsible for the K corona, the dust particles move relatively slowly. Thus, the light scattered by them has the same spectrum as the photosphere and shows the Fraunhofer lines. The F corona is the most luminous part of the corona at 1.5 solar radii from the Sun's surface.
A linear pattern in the chromosphere of the Sun, as seen through an H-alpha filter, occurring near strong sunspots and plages or in filament channels. They are magnetically confined tubes of hot plasm
a. Individually, they are about 10,000 km long and last for 10 to 20 minutes.
A solar flare is an intense burst of radiative energy across the entire EM spectrum, with the largest enhancements in the X-ray, EUV and radio portions. Powerful flares are often, but not always, acco
mpanied by a CME. Flares are labelled with a letter and number. The letter is the flare class and indicates the peak intensity in W/m2 of X-rays in the 1-8 Ångstrom wavelength range as measured at Earth by the GOES spacecraft. The weakest one is A class followed by the classes B, C, M and X, each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output. Within each letter class there is a finer scale from 1-9 although X-class flares could be higher.
An explosive event in the Sun's atmospherewhich produces electromagnetic radiation across the electromagnetic spectrumat multiple wavelengths from long-wave radio to the shortest wavelengthgamma rays.
An explosive event in the Sun's atmosphere which produces electromagnetic radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum at multiple wavelengths from long-wave radio to the shortest wavelength gamma ra
ys. (spase)
An explosive event in the Sun's atmosphere which produces electromagnetic radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum at multiple wavelengths from long-wave radio to the shortest wavelength gamma ra
ys. (spase)
A bright eruption form the Sun's chromosphere in the vicinity of a sunspot. Solar flares are caused by tremendous explosions on the surface of the Sun. In a matter of just a few minutes they heat the
material to many millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.
A bright eruption form the Sun's chromosphere in the vicinity of a sunspot. Solar flares are caused by tremendous explosions on the surface of the Sun. In a matter of just a few minutes they heat the
material to many millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.
A bright eruption form the Sun's chromosphere in the vicinity of a sunspot. Solar flares are caused by tremendous explosions on the surface of the Sun. In a matter of just a few minutes they heat the
material to many millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.
A great burst of light and radiation due to the release of magnetic energy on the sun. Flares are by far the biggest explosions in the solar system, with energy releases comparable to billions of hydr
ogen bombs. The radiation from the flare travels at the speed of light, and so reaches Earth within eight minutes. The energy is generally absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, which protects humans on Earth, however, the energy can cause radio blackouts on Earth for minutes or, in the worst cases, hours at a time. The radiation from a flare would also be harmful to astronauts outside of Earth's atmosphere. Some, but by no means all, flares have an associated coronal mass ejection (CME).