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Solar Storms
Coronal mass ejections can strike Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic field surrounding our planet. This collision leads to changes in the outer atmosphere that disrupt satellite orbits and ground-based communications and power systems. During these solar storms it's also unsafe for astronauts to work outside their spacecraft. NCAR’s Mauna Loa Solar Observatory in Hawaii trains advanced observation tools on the corona to examine the forces that lead to coronal mass ejections. NCAR scientists are also working with their counterparts across the country on a comprehensive program, known as the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling, to simulate solar storms and their impacts on Earth. Huge clouds of cool gas, known as prominences, are often carried outward with coronal mass ejections, forming spectacular twisted arches as they move away from the Sun. To better understand the behavior of prominences, NCAR scientists are developing techniques to measure the magnetic fields that hold prominences above the solar surface. Researchers are interested in related types of solar disturbances as well. Associated with many coronal mass ejections are brief but enormous explosions, known as flares, which spew high-energy extreme-ultraviolet radiation and x-rays into space. Flares, which may be caused by the tearing and reconnecting of magnetic fields, can last less than an hour but heat material to many millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT. < previous | index | next >
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Though the Sun looks calm in the sky, it is actually the site of
violent activity driven by magnetic mayhem. The most dramatic solar
storms are known as coronal mass ejections. These
are associated with the corona’s strong magnetic fields.
When the fields are closed, often in loops above groups of sunspots,
the confined solar atmosphere can suddenly and violently release
bubbles or tongues of gas, ejecting billions of tons of matter.
This may create a shock wave in the solar wind that accelerates
particles to dangerously high energies. Behind the shock wave,
the coronal mass ejection expands into a huge cloud that engulfs
any planet in its path with plasma.
