Solar magic

April 27, 2008

Apparently, the sun doesn’t need spots to unleash a solar flare. On Saturday, with not a single spot in sight, the sun released a strong solar flare that registered B3.8 on the Richter scale of solar flares. A jet of highly energized particles, called a coronal mass ejection, was spotted billowing away from the sun a short time later.

Usually, such flares stem from sunspots, which are highly magnetized areas on the surface of the sun. This time, the magnetism was not intense enough to form a spot. The CME may pass close enough by Earth on Monday or Tuesday to color northern skies with aurora.

Here's a short film clip of a rather impressive solar flare -- not Saturday's outburst, but you'll get the idea: