Solar flare fortune telling

Sunspots: Sometimes there are some dark areas on the surface of the photosphere, which is where the magnetic field gathers. This is a sunspot. Sunspots are the most prominent phenomena that can be seen on the surface of the sun. A medium-sized sunspot is about the size of the earth.

It takes days to weeks for sunspots to form and disappear. When a strong magnetic field appears on the surface of the sun, the background temperature in this area slowly drops from 6000 degrees Celsius to 4000 degrees Celsius, and then a dark spot appears on the surface of the sun in this area. The darkest part of the sunspot center is called umbra, which is the region with the strongest magnetic field. The fringe area around the umbra that is not too dark is called penumbra. Sunspots rotate with the surface of the sun, and it takes about 27 days to complete one rotation.

Solar flare: Solar flare is the most violent explosion phenomenon that occurs in local areas of the solar atmosphere. It releases a lot of energy in a short time, causing local areas to heat up instantly, emitting all kinds of electromagnetic radiation, accompanied by a sudden increase in particle radiation.

Because the background radiation of the solar photosphere is too strong, most flares can't be observed under white light, and the radiation enhancement is mainly in some spectral lines, among which the Hα line of hydrogen (wavelength of 6563 angstrom, color is orange red) and the H and K lines of ionized calcium (wavelength of 3968 angstrom and 3934 angstrom, respectively) are the most prominent. When these monochromatic lights are used to monitor the chromosphere of the sun, sometimes small local areas suddenly brighten in the spectral spots near the active area. In a few minutes, the brightness enhancement area quickly becomes several times or even dozens of times brighter from the original spectral spot brightness, and then slowly returns to the original spectral spot brightness within a few minutes to 1 ~ 2 hours.

Extended data:

Flare genesis

The sun's atmosphere is full of magnetic fields. The more complex the magnetic field structure, the easier it is to store more magnetic energy. When there is too much magnetic energy stored in the magnetic field, it will release energy through solar burst activity, and solar flare is a form of solar burst activity.

Long-term observation shows that most flares occur over the sunspot group, and the more complex the structure of the sunspot group and the polarity of the magnetic field, the higher the probability of large flares. On average, a normal sunspot group will produce a flare almost every few hours, but there are very few flares that really have a strong impact on the earth.

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