Solar flares are hotter than beforehand thought

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Solar flares are intense bursts of sunshine and particles from the solar. And whereas they will pose hazards for issues like satellites, they’re additionally stunning, dramatic and extremely sizzling. NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce studies on simply how excessive the temperatures can get.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: The solar is sizzling – no duh – however how sizzling is it? Alexander Russell is with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He says completely different components of the solar have completely different temperatures. The core is round 27 million levels fahrenheit. It’s hotter than the floor, which is barely round 10,000 levels.

ALEXANDER RUSSELL: And then it really begins to get hotter as you progress out into the outer layer.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: That outer layer is the ghostly ring you see throughout a complete photo voltaic eclipse. It might be over 2 million levels. What Russell wished to know was the temperature of photo voltaic flares. These flares erupt when a sudden launch of magnetic vitality sends particles taking pictures out. There’s two sorts of particles – electrons and ions. Telescopes taking a look at flares can measure the temperature of the electrons.

RUSSELL: And we have form of simply assumed, nicely, the ion temperature could be the identical because the electron temperature.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The hassle is, that does not appear to be true, no less than not in line with latest laptop simulations and measurements in near-Earth house. They say that really, ions can get approach hotter than electrons. So Russell and his colleagues did some calculations, and so they now say that photo voltaic flares might be greater than six occasions hotter than beforehand recognized – over 100 million levels Fahrenheit, possibly even as much as 180 million.

RUSSELL: Which is form of a loopy quantity.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: They’ve revealed their evaluation in Astrophysical Journal Letters. One one who was completely satisfied to see it’s James Drake. He’s a physicist on the University of Maryland. He and his analysis companions have lengthy been learning how magnetic vitality will get dumped into particles like electrons and ions. He says the distinction between the 2 has been neglected relating to photo voltaic flares.

JAMES DRAKE: We’ve been confronting the photo voltaic physicists, telling them that regardless that they’ve measured in quite a lot of element what is going on on with the electrons, they’re lacking one thing large.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says including this piece in ought to enhance scientists’ understanding of how photo voltaic flares and their related phenomena really work, which may assist shield {hardware} like satellites and other people like astronauts from these harmful however superior eruptions.

Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

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