No Need To Panic As The Sunspot With The Possibility Of Solar Flares Doubles In Size During The Night Scientists Say

A sunspot pointing to the Earth has the potential to cause solar flares, but experts told USA TODAY that it is far from unusual and alleviates concerns about how flares will affect the Blue Planet. The Active Region 3038, or AR3038, is rising last week, said Rob Steenburgh, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Space Weather Forecasts. “That’s what sunspots do,” he said. “Over time, in general, they will increase. They go through stages and then disintegrate.” Sunspots look darker because they are colder than other parts of the sun, according to NASA. Sunspots are cooler because they form where strong magnetic fields prevent heat in the sun from reaching its surface. “I guess the easiest way to put it is that sunspots are areas of magnetic activity,” Steenburgh said. Solar flares, which usually emanate from sunspots, are “a sudden burst of energy caused by the entanglement, intersection or rearrangement of magnetic field lines near sunspots,” NASA said. “You can think of it as twisting tires,” Steenburgh said. “If you have two rubber bands twisting around your finger, they end up twisting too much and breaking. The difference with magnetic fields is that they reconnect. And when they reconnect, in the process a flare is created.” The bigger and more complex a sunspot becomes, the greater the chance of solar flares, Steenburgh said. The sunspot has doubled in size every day for the past three days and is about 2.5 times the size of Earth, said Alex Alex Young, deputy director of science at the Department of Solar Physics at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. . Young said the sunspot produces small solar flares, but “does not have the complexity of larger flares.” There is a 30% chance the sunspot will generate medium-sized flares and a 10% chance of generating large flares, he said. W. Dean Pesnell, a scientist at the Solar Dynamics Observatory, said the sunspot was a “moderately active area” that “has not grown unusually fast and is still somewhat small in size”. “AR 3038 is exactly the kind of active area we expect at this point in the solar cycle,” he said. Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo, a lead scientist at the Southwestern Research Institute in San Antonio, said the sunspot was not something that people on Earth should worry about. “I want to emphasize that there is no need to panic,” he said. “They happen all the time, and we are prepared and do what we can to anticipate and mitigate their effects. For most of us, we do not need to lose sleep because of this.” Solar flares have different levels, Muñoz-Jaramillo said. The smaller ones are Class A flares, followed by B, C, M and X at the highest power. Within each letter category there is a finer scale that uses numbers and higher numbers indicate higher volume. C-flares are too weak to significantly affect the Earth, Muñoz-Jaramillo said. More intense flashes of M can disrupt radio communication at the Earth’s poles. X-rays can disrupt satellites, communications systems, and power grids, and in the worst case, cause power outages and power outages. Lower intensity solar flares are quite common. X-flares are less, Steenburgh said. In a solar cycle of about 11 years, there are usually about 2,000 M1 flares, about 175 X1 flashes and about eight X10 flares, he said. For larger solar flares at X20 or higher, there is less than one per cycle. This solar cycle started in December 2019. The AR3038 sunspot has caused C flares, Steenburgh said. Although there were no M or X flares from this area, he said there is a possibility of more intense flares next week or so. The sun emits a moderate solar flare (c) 2022 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Report: “You do not need to panic”, as the sunspot with the possibility of solar flares doubles in size during the night, say the scientists (2022, June 22) recovered on June 22, 2022 from
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title: " No Need To Panic As The Sunspot With The Possibility Of Solar Flares Doubles In Size During The Night Scientists Say " ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-29” author: “Shelley Cary”

A sunspot pointing to the Earth has the potential to cause solar flares, but experts told USA TODAY that it is far from unusual and alleviates concerns about how flares will affect the Blue Planet. The Active Region 3038, or AR3038, is rising last week, said Rob Steenburgh, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Space Weather Forecasts. “That’s what sunspots do,” he said. “Over time, in general, they will increase. They go through stages and then disintegrate.” Sunspots look darker because they are colder than other parts of the sun, according to NASA. Sunspots are cooler because they form where strong magnetic fields prevent heat in the sun from reaching its surface. “I guess the easiest way to put it is that sunspots are areas of magnetic activity,” Steenburgh said. Solar flares, which usually emanate from sunspots, are “a sudden burst of energy caused by the entanglement, intersection or rearrangement of magnetic field lines near sunspots,” NASA said. “You can think of it as twisting tires,” Steenburgh said. “If you have two rubber bands twisting around your finger, they end up twisting too much and breaking. The difference with magnetic fields is that they reconnect. And when they reconnect, in the process a flare is created.” The bigger and more complex a sunspot becomes, the greater the chance of solar flares, Steenburgh said. The sunspot has doubled in size every day for the past three days and is about 2.5 times the size of Earth, said Alex Alex Young, deputy director of science at the Department of Solar Physics at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. . Young said the sunspot produces small solar flares, but “does not have the complexity of larger flares.” There is a 30% chance the sunspot will generate medium-sized flares and a 10% chance of generating large flares, he said. W. Dean Pesnell, a scientist at the Solar Dynamics Observatory, said the sunspot was a “moderately active area” that “has not grown unusually fast and is still somewhat small in size”. “AR 3038 is exactly the kind of active area we expect at this point in the solar cycle,” he said. Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo, a lead scientist at the Southwestern Research Institute in San Antonio, said the sunspot was not something that people on Earth should worry about. “I want to emphasize that there is no need to panic,” he said. “They happen all the time, and we are prepared and do what we can to anticipate and mitigate their effects. For most of us, we do not need to lose sleep because of this.” Solar flares have different levels, Muñoz-Jaramillo said. The smaller ones are Class A flares, followed by B, C, M and X at the highest power. Within each letter category there is a finer scale that uses numbers and higher numbers indicate higher volume. C-flares are too weak to significantly affect the Earth, Muñoz-Jaramillo said. More intense flashes of M can disrupt radio communication at the Earth’s poles. X-rays can disrupt satellites, communications systems, and power grids, and in the worst case, cause power outages and power outages. Lower intensity solar flares are quite common. X-flares are less, Steenburgh said. In a solar cycle of about 11 years, there are usually about 2,000 M1 flares, about 175 X1 flashes and about eight X10 flares, he said. For larger solar flares at X20 or higher, there is less than one per cycle. This solar cycle started in December 2019. The AR3038 sunspot has caused C flares, Steenburgh said. Although there were no M or X flares from this area, he said there is a possibility of more intense flares next week or so. The sun emits a moderate solar flare (c) 2022 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Report: “You do not need to panic”, as the sunspot with the possibility of solar flares doubles in size during the night, say the scientists (2022, June 22) recovered on June 22, 2022 from
This document is subject to copyright. Except for any fair transaction for the purposes of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without our written permission. Content is provided for informational purposes only.