Predictions of outbursts from the sun are typically based on the amount of activity observed on the sun's roiling surface, without accounting for the specific processes behind the blasts.
A new technique could help predict the violent eruptions of radiation known as solar flares based on the physics behind them, researchers report in the July 31 Science.
When applied to old data, the method anticipated several powerful flares, although it missed some as well.
Radiation released in solar flares and associated eruptions of charged particles, or plasma, can be harmful. This space weather can disrupt radio communications, throw off satellites, take down power grids and endanger astronauts. More accurate forecasts could allow operators to switch off sensitive systems or otherwise make preparations to mitigate negative effects. Current prediction methods rely on tracking flare-linked phenomena such as large, complex sunspots - dark regions on the sun's surface with powerful magnetic fields. In contrast, the new prediction method is rooted in the intricacies of how and when the sun's tangled loops of magnetic fields rearrange themselves, in a process known as magnetic reconnection, releasing bursts of energy that mark solar flares. On the sun's surface, magnetic fields can get gnarly. Magnetic field lines, imaginary contours that indicate the direction of the magnetic field at various locations, loop and cross over one another like well-mixed spaghetti. When those lines break and reconnect, a burst of energy is released, producing a flare. The details of how and under what conditions this happens have yet to be unravelled.
Writer: Thwishaa Mehta
31/07/2020
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