Different Ways the Sun can Explode

Item

Title

Different Ways the Sun can Explode

Description

Solar flares, explosive releases of power that rival the force of ten million volcanic eruptions, can occur multiple times a day. The sun releases staggering amounts of energy as a bombardment of particles and radiation, blasting across the solar system towards Earth. It is thought that radiation from the beginning of the flare should scale with the radiation released during the main phase, but new experimental data doesn't match this hypothesis. So what is happening? We know that the magnetic field of the sun can change how the particles are directed. We believe that in some flare events particles may be directed back towards the sun instead of out into space, increasing the radiation released in the beginning of the flare. To prove this, we are comparing H-alpha images of the sun and images of the solar magnetic field at the time of flare events to determine the magnetic configuration.

Sarah McGregor

Contributor

Keene State College

Creator

Micah K. Arends

Date

2017-10-11

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12088/8104

Subject

Physics

Type

Presentation

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Item sets

AEC 2017 School of Sciences and Social Sciences

Site pages

School of Sciences and Social Sciences