Is something we would do if we’re under stress or after an intense day of work. Taking part in relaxing activities and similar task in order to “blow off some steam” and these activities or task may vary from people. So what about the sun? Although it may not be living organism like you and me, it does need blow off some steam from time to time but instead of steam, in this case, it’s magnetic energy, and these events are known as solar flare.
So, some background information about solar flare:
- A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released.
- Radiation is emitted across virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves at the long wavelength end, through optical emission to x-rays and gamma rays at the short wavelength end.
- These solar flare contains high energy photons and particles, and is released from the sun in a relatively short amount of time.
- The amount of energy that is release in such a short time is extremely high, so high that most solar flare is equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs. Not only this, if the harmful radiation is exceptionally intense, it’s able to disrupt communications on Earth, such as; GPS and phone signals.
![Solar flare X1.7 12th of May]()
Image of the first solar flare on 12th of May, ranked as a X1.7-class.
- Solar flares travel to similar speeds of light, which is around 300 million metres per second, or to be precise – 299, 792, 458 metres/second
So, why bring this up on a day or night like this? Well recently, there has been not 1, not 2, but 4 solar flares that have been emitted in under than a few days on May 12th to May 14th, 2013. Further on this remark , these solar flares have been classified as the “X-class”, which “denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.” as quoted from the NASA report.
The first eruption started on May 12th, 10pm. EDT, peaking at X1.7, which is the first X-class flare for 2013. 14 hours after the first eruption, the second solar flare was emitted, peaking at X2.8 at 12:05pm EDT. And then, at 9:11pm EDT, the third solar flare erupted from the sun, being classified as X3.2. Then on the 14th of May at 9:48 pm, an X1.2 solar flare was emitted, which was more directed to Earth than the other 3, thus has the ability to cause a radio blackout.
Four images of the X3.2 class solar flare on 13th of May, with each image showing the different wavelengths used in order to capture the image
So thanks for reading and I hope these solar flares won’t be cause much problems for these upcoming days.o lucky for us, these solar flares weren’t as huge as the past events, nor were they aimed directly towards Earth, meaning the threat of these flare weren’t prioritize as high threats. And also, because these flares have occurred recently, I will try and keep this post updated, or you could check out the report on the NASA website HERE
References:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News051513-ar1748.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News051213-flare.html
